PIONEERS
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THE
AMS
PIONEERS OF HOMEOPATHY.
COMPILED BY
THOMAS LINDSLEY BRADFORD, M. D.,
Author of "Homœopathic Bibliography of the United States, 'Life and
Letters of Hahnemann," Senior of the American Institute of Ho-
mœopathy, Member of the Homœopathic Medical Society
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County Homœo-
pathic Medical Society and Librarian at
Hahnemann Medical College
of Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA :
BOERICKE & TAFEL.
1897.
};
.!
COPYRIGHTED BY
BOERICKE & TAFEL.
1897.
T. B. & H. B. COCHRAN, PRINTERS,
LANCASTER, PA.
Dedicated
To the Memory of babnemann and His
Loyal Followers.
PREFACE.
The memory of men who have been instrumental in relieving
human suffering is worthy of being preserved, and it has been
the aim to present in the pages of this book all the facts that it
has been possible to obtain concerning the early provers of medi-
cines and the practitioners of Homoeopathy. These, our
pioneers, who, when Homœopathy was ridiculed by the major-
ity of the physicians of the day, and when it was looked upon
with doubt by the laity, yet had the courage of their convictions
and insisted by precept and practice that it was the only true
system for healing the sick.
The first part of the book is devoted to an account of the
pioneer provers of the homoeopathic materia medica. The de-
voted band of students who were Hahnemann's pupils in Leipzig
from 1811 to 1821, and who recognized the genius of the savant,
the teacher, the chemist and the physician, and were convinced
of the truth of his method of healing. The men who assisted
him by proving upon themselves various drugs and carefully
noting their effects under his direction. It was from this union
of bright intellects that Hahnemann was able to give to the
world the "Materia Medica Pura," which ever since has been
so useful to the practitioners of the homoeopathic school.
The second part of the book is devoted to biographies of all the
persons who were practicing Homoeopathy previous to the year
1835. It is as nearly as possible a complete list of the homoeo-
pathic practitioners in every country in the world where our
method had then been adopted.
In
To accomplish this task has not been easy. Files of medical
journals in a number of languages have been collated, often page
by page. Many books on biography have been examined.
the case of Stapf a translation was made from an old book in
the library of the surgeon-general's office at Washington. Noth-
ing could be found in our literature about that distinguished
man.
vi
PREFACE.
·
Translations have been made especially for this work. Thanks
are due to Rev. Mr. L. H. Tafel, who made the translations
from the German. Occasionally lack of space made it necessary
to condense biographies, in which case the account has been
selected which gave most clearly the story of the man's life.
Most of the biographies are printed verbatim as found in the
journals.
Reference is given at the end of each biography to all the
books and journals that contain any account of the person in
question.
The members of the homoeopathic school cannot know too
much about the struggles, under persistent opposition, of the
men who carried the law of Homoeopathy into different lands;
who, by their devotion, their belief in its truth made it possible
that the physician of our faith is to-day recognized by very many
people as the exponent of the most successful and best system
of medical practice.
With the hope that these sketches may be of value to some one
we present this "bead roll" of faithful, earnest men, men who
were compelled by the power of logic to believe in the tenets of
Hahnemann, to the members of the homoeopathic profession in
the trust that from a knowledge of their lives and earnest pur-
pose some good may result to Homœopathy.
Achilloides, 139
Adam, 10, 139
Aegidi, Jul., 139
Ahner, 10
Albrecht, 140
Alleon, 141
Alessi, 141
Amador, R. de, 141
Amman, 141
Andrieux, 142
Anfossi, 142
Anniballi, 142
Anton, —, IO
Apelt, 142
Arnaud, 142
Arnold, W., 142
Attomyr, 143
Baehr, 10
Baertl, J., 150
Bakody, 151
Baldi, 154
Balogh, Von, 154
Bamberg, 154
Bano, Lopex del, 156
Baraczhaz, 156
Barth, 157
Baudis, 157
Baumann, 158
Baumgartel, 158
Bayard, 158
Bayer, Pere, 158
Becher, Io
Beels, 158
Becker, Benj., 158
Becker, C. J., 160
Behrens, 160
Beister, 160
Belluomini, 160
Bene, Von, 160
CONTENTS.
Bernhardti, 160
Bethmann, 160
Bergmann, 163
Bertrand, 163
Beyer, Von, 163
Beyer, Von. C., 158
Bigel, 163
Billig, 165
Birnstill, J., 165
Blanc, 166
Blasi, De, 167
Blau, 167
Bonninghausen, 167
Bohler, 191
Bondini, 191
Bonnet (Lyons), 191
Bonnet (Amberieux), 192
Bonneval, De, 192
Bonorden, 192
Borchard, 192
Bormann, 192
Bourges, 192
Brand, C. P., 192
Braun, M., 193
Braun (Rome), 195
Bravais, Jr., 195
Bravais, Sr., 195
Brixhe, 195
Brugger, Ignat., 195
Brunnow, Von, 196
Brutzer, 200
Buongiovanni, 202
Burdach, 202
Bussy 202
Bute, G. H., 202
Cabarrus, 206
Caldas, 206
Cameron, 206
Caravelli, 206
viii
CONTENTS.
Carlier, 206
Carrault, 206
Caspari, Carl, 10
Catenet, 206
Centamori, 206
Chancerel, 207
Channing, Wm., 207
Chargé, A., 209
Charriere, 209
Chazel, 209
Chuit, 209
Ciccarini, 210
Cimone, 210
Clauss, -, 14
Coll, J. S., 210
Convers, 211
Crepu, 211
Cronigneau, 211
Cronin, Ed., 211
Croserio, 212
Cubitz, 14
Curie, 217
Curtis, J. F., 224
Dapaz, 225
Davet, 225
Delavallade, 225
Denicke, 225
Denoix, 225
Dessaix, 225
Deschamps, 225
Detwiller, Henry, 226
Devrient, 232
Dezauche, 232
Diehl, 232
Dorotea, 232
Drescher, 232
Dufresne, 232
Dufresne (Savoy), 233
Dugniolle, 233
Dunemberg, 233
Dunsford, 233
Duret, Jr., 235
Duret, Sr., 235
Durif, 235
Dutcher, Benj., 235
Dutech, 235
Eglau, 236
Ehrhardt, 236
Ehrman, F., 239
Elwert, 239
Enz, 239
Epps, 239
Escallier, 251
Everest, 251
Fangel, 252
Faustus, 252
Fickel, 252
Fielitz, 258
Fischer, A., 260
Fischer, 261
Fischer (Silesia), 262
Fitzler, 262
Flamming, -, 14
Fleischmann, 262
Folch, 267
Folger, R. B., 267
Forgo, 268
Franca, 272
Franco, 272
Franz, 14
Freytag, E., 272
Gabalda, 274
Gachassin, 274
Gaggi, 274
Garnier, 274
Gaspary, 274
Gastier, 274
Gauwerky, 275
Geisler, 275
Geist, 276
Gentzke, 276
Gerber, 276
Gersdorff, Von, 20
Gerstel, A., 276
Gidela, 283
Gil, 283
Gillet, 283
Girtanner, 283
Glasor, 283
Glucker, 285
Gossner, 285
Gottschalch, 285
Goullon, 285
•
CONTENTS.
ix
Gram, H. B., 288
Granger, John, 3c0
Granier, 300
Gray, J F., 300
Griesselich,
-,317
Gross, G. W., 20, 328
Grossi, 329
Gruner, J., 329
Gubitz, 330
Gueyrard, 330
Guidi, Des, 331
Guisan, 335
Guenther, F. A., 335
Guenther, 335
Guenther, 31
Guttmann, 32
Hahnemann, Fr., 35
Handt, 335
Harnisch, 52
Hanusch, 335
Hartmann, 335
Hartmann, Franz, 54
Hartlaub, 52
Hartung, 75, 335
Hassloecher, 336
Haubold, C., 337
Haugk, 338
Hauptmann, 338
Haynel, 75
Hayser, 338
Heilmann, 338
Helbig, 338
Helfrich, J., 339
Helwig,
-,343
Hempel, Gust, 76
Hempel, H., 76
Heermann, 76
Helm, 344
Hering, Const., 344
Hering, W., 350
Hermann, C. T., 76, 351
Herrmann, 351
Herwitz, 352
Herzog, 353
Hesse, 353
Heyder, 353
Heye, 353
Hille, Jr., 353
Hoffendahl, 353
Holst, Von, 353
Horatiis, 354
Hornburg, 77
Hromada, 362
Hugo, 84
Hunnius (Arnstadt), 363
Hull, A. G., 363
Ihm, Carl, 364
Impimbo, 365
Iriarte, 365
Ivanyos, 365
Jaeckel, 365
Jaenger, 366
Jahr, 366
Jamm, 386
Janer, 386
Jeanes, J., 386
Jenichen, 392
John, 410
Jourdain, 410
Jourdan, A. J. L., 410
Juvin, 410
Kammerer, 411
Kiesselbach, 411
Kingdon, 415
Kinzel, 415
Kirschleger, 415
Kirsten, 416
Kleiner, 416
Kolmar, 416
Korner, 416
Kraft, 416
Krampla, 416
Kretzschmar, 416
Knorre, 419
Korsakoff, 419
Kummer, 84
Laburthe, 422
Laffan, 422
Lafitte, 422
Langhammer, 84
Landeser, 422
X
CONTENTS.
Lang, 422
La Raja, 422
Lario, 422
Laurencet, 422
Laville, 422
Leaf, 423
Leboucher, 428
Lederer, 428
Lehmann, J. G, 86, 430
Lehmann (Dresden), 430
Lehmann, C. F. H., 87, 430
Lichtenfels, 430
Leidbeck, 430
Libert, 434
Lingen, Geo., 434
Liuzzi, 434
Lobethal, 434
Loscher, 435
Lævi, 436
Lowe, 436
Longchamp, 436
Lorenz, 438
Lopez, 440
Lund, 440
Luther, G., 440.
Luther, C W., 440
Lux, 441
Mabit, 442
Mach, 446
Mainotti, 446
Malaise, 446
Maly, 447
Malz, 447
Mansa, Ed., 447
Manzelli, 447
Marchand, 447
Marchesani, 447
Marenzel er, 447
Marthes, 468
Martinez, 468
Massol, 468
Mattersdorf, 468
Matlack, C. F., 468
Mauro, 469
Mayer, 472
Maysginter, 472
Meerbur, 472
Meierhoff, 472
Meier, 472
Menz, 472
Messerschmidt, 472
Meyer, F., 87
Michler, 95
Milcent, 473
Moeckel, 95
Molin, 473
Monnet, 474
Moor, De, 475
Mordwinoff, 478
Mossdorf, T., 87, 479
Mossbauer, 479
Mühlenbein, 479
Müller, B, 487
Müller, J, 487
Müller, M. W., 88
Mure, 493
Muret, 501
Murray, 501
Mussek, 501
Mylo, 501
Nanni, 502
Nenning, 96
Necker, 502
Niemeier, 502
Nikolai, 502
Noack, 503
Nostenchi, 503
Nozeus, 503
Ody, 503
Olhant, 503
Pabst, 503
Paillon, 504
Palmieri, 504
Panthin, 504
Passavent, 504
Perrussel, 504
Peschier, 506
Peterson, A., 511
Petterson, 512
Petroz, 512
Pezzillo, 514
Pictet, 514
CONTENTS.
xi
'Pinciano, 514
Pinget, 516
Piorry, 516
Plaubel, 516
Pleyel, 516
Pougens, 516
Preu, 516
Pulte, J. H., 520
Quadri, 531
Quaranta, 531
Querol, 531
Quin, 532
Rabatta, 548
Rampal, 548
Rapou, 548
Rau, 549
Reichhelm, G, 556
Renou, 562
Reubel, 562
Reuter, 563
Reymond, 563
Rigaud, 563
Ringseiss, 563
Rino, y Hurtado, 563
Roch, 564
Roehl, 564
Romani, 568
Romig, J., 571
Rosazewsky, 95
Roth, J., 572
Roth, 573
Roux, 573
Rubiales, 574
Rubini, 574
Rueckert, Camenz, 578
Rueckert, L. E., 109
Rueckert, E. F., 103
Rueckert, T. J., 577
Rummel, 109
Ruppius, 578
Sabatini, 578
Sagliocchi, 578
Sanniccola, 578
Saynisch, L., 578
Schafer, 579
Schaller, 579
Scheering, 579
Schindler, 579
Schmager, 580
Schmidt (Glatz), 580
Schmidt, G., 580
Schmieder, 580
Schmoele, Win., 580
Schmit, 581
Schnieber, 582
Schober, 582
Schoenicke, 117
Schonike, 95
Schroen, 582
Schroder, 95
Schreter, 585
Schubart, 591
Schubert, A., 591
Schubert, 591
Schuler, 591
. Schwarze, 592
Schweickert, G. A. B., 593
Schweickert, J., 598
Schyrmeier, 600
Scott, G. M., 600
Seidel, 603
Seider, 603
Seither, 603
Sellden, 603
Seuber, 603
Siegel, 603
Siegrist, 604
Simon, L., 604
Simpson, 610
Soderberg, 610
Sollier, 611
Sonnenberg, 611
Souden, 611
Spohr, 611
Stapf, 117
Stearns, D. E., 611
Stegemann, 612
Steigentisch, 613
Stephani, 613
Stoeger, 613
Stratton, 613
Stueler, 613
Sundeen, 614
xii
CONTENTS.
Swoff, 614
Szabo, 615
Taglianini, 615
Taubes, 615
Taubitz, 615
Tessier, 616
Teuthorn, 122
Thorer, 618
Tietze, 625
Timbart, 628
Tittmann, 628
Tonaillon, 628
Tournier, 628
Trajanelli, 628
Trinius, 629
Trinks, 123
Trombetti, 629
Tscherwinzky, 629
Urban, 95, 127
Uwins, 630
Vanderburgh, G., 631
Van Beuren, L. F., 637
Varlez, 638
Vehsemeier, 639
Veith, 639
Veith, 639
Velex, 641
Waage, 641
Wagner, G., 128
Wagner, J., 641
Wahle, 128
Wahlenberg, 641
Wahrhold, 643
Walter, 643
Walther, 133
Weber, 643
Weihe, 644
Weinseisen, 644
Wenzel, 133
Werber, 644
Werner, 644
Wesselhoft, Wm., 644
Widnmann, 662
Wilhelmi (Arnstadt), 663
Wilhelmi (Cassel), 663
Wilsey, F. L., 663
Wilson, A. D., 665
Winckler, 667
Wislicenus, 134
Wohlleben, 667
Wolff, 667
Wolf, P., 668
Wolf, C. W., 675
Wratzky, 675
Wrecha, 675
Zeisig, 677
Zimmerman, 677
Zinkhau, 677
PART I.
PROVERS WHO ASSISTED
HAHNEMANN.
"Learning hath gained most by those books
by which the printers have lost.”—Fuller.
Page Missing
in Original
Volume
Page Missing
in Original
Volume
THE STORY OF THE
Provers who Assisted Hahnemann.
PART I.
INTRODUCTORY.
The Materia Medica Pura of Hahnemann was first published
by Arnold in Dresden in six parts, from 1811 to 1821. In this
edition the symptoms observed by Hahnemann himself appear
first and separately numbered. Under the heading: "Observa-
tions by Others," follow the symptoms observed by his pupils
under his own directions and also those culled from the writings
of others; these are arranged and numbered specially. Hering
says of this:* "In his Materia Medica Pura, 1811 to 1821, he
separated his own observations always from the symptoms by
others. After Stapf had adopted the new doctrine and had
brought over his friend W. Gross, and A. Haynel became
Hahnemann's assistant, he got a class of students, and nearly
all, willing provers. Hahnemann examined every report before
the class carefully and with closest scrutiny. Every one had
solemnly to affirm before the class that what he had written was
the truth and nothing but the truth.
"Still Hahnemann kept his own symptoms separately, and
what he observed himself was of greater importance to him. He
did it to the torment of all who joined the New School and were
obliged to read all the volumes as far as published, to find the
similar drug, and he adhered to this plan and doubled the diffi-
culty, not being credulous or incredulous, but he was more cer-
tain of his own symptoms. We all had to read both-first his,
then that of others--in looking for a corresponding medicine.
"Even in the second edition he still kept up this, for all of us,
distressing separation."
*N. A. Jl. Hom., Vol. xxii., p. 101.
6
STORY OF THE PROVERS
f
The second edition of the Materia Medica was issued also in
six parts by Arnold from 1822 to 1827, the same arrangement
being observed.
In the Chronic Diseases, 1828 to 1830, he, however, included
his own symptoms, those of his provers and those obtained from
other sources (Old School books), in one arrangement, number-
ing them continuously.
Of the third edition of the Materia Medica only Vols. I., II.
were ever published, in 1830 and 1833. In these the observa-
tions are all arranged together and numbered continuously.
The medicines are in none of these books arranged alphabetic-
ally.
In the preface of Vol. I. of Dr. R. E. Dudgeon's translation of
the Materia Medica Pura may be found the following list of
the men who proved one or more drugs for the Materia Medica
Pura of Hahnemann. The names of the medicines proven by
each are also given.
HAHNEMANN'S FELLOW PROVERS.
ADAM, DR.-Carbo an., Carbo veg.
AHNER, G. A.-Acon., Cap., Cina., Menyan.
ANTON, C. CHR.-China.
BAEHR, AUG.-Ars., Bell., China, Coccul.
BECHER, HULDA-Chelidon., China, Digit., Ledum, Phos. ac.,
Spig., Squilla, Veratrum.
CASPARI, CARL-Carbo veg.
CLAUSS, W.-China.
CUBITZ, C. A.-Dulcamara, Opium, Staph.
FLAMING, JOHANN GOTTFRIED-Coccul., Hyos., Nux vom.
FRANZ, CARL-Angustura, Argentum, Arnica, Asarum, Aurum,
Calc. acetica, Camphor, Cannabis, China, Conium, Cyclamen,
Digit., Hyos., Ledum, Magnet north, Magnet south pole, Man-
ganum, Menyanthes, Oleander, Phos. acid, Rhus t., Ruta, Sam-
buc., Spig., Stannum, Staph., Stram., Tarax., Thuja, Verat.
GERSDORFF, FRANZ VON-Amber, Carbo veg.
GROSS, WILHELM-Acon., Angus., Argent., Arnic., Arsen.,
Aurum, Bell., Can., Chel., China, Cocc., Dulc., Digit., Ferrum,
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
7
Ignat., Mang., Mercu., Moschus, Olean., Phos. ac., Rheum,
Ruta, Sambuc., Opii., Stan., Staph., Thuja, Verb.
GUNTHER-North magnet.
GUTMANN, SALAMO-Coloc., Dros., Men., Merc., Mur. ac.,
Olean., Opium, Phos. ac., Spig., Spong., Staph., Stram., Tarax.
HAHNEMANN, FREIDRICH-Acon., Arn., Ars., Aur., Bell.,
Bry., Cannab., Cicuta, Coloc., Dros., Euphras., Fer., Hepar,
Hyos., Ign., Merc., Moschus, Nux v., Phos. ac., Puls., Rhus,
Spong., Stram., Sulph., Thuja, Veratrum.
HARNISCH, ERNST--Angustura, China, North magnet, South
magnet.
HARTMANN, FRANZ-Bell., Bismuth, Carbo an., Chel., China,
Guaiac., Hell., North magnet, Menyanthes, Merc., Mur. ac.,
Oleander, Phos. ac., Ruta, Samb., Sarsap., Spig., Spong., Squill.,
Stannum, Staph., Thuja, Verbascum.
HARTUNG, J. C.-Bell., Caps., China, Cyclamen.
Haynel, ADOLPH FRANZ-Argent., Cocc., Mangan., Meny-
anth., Mur. ac., Spong., Stannum, Staph., Thuja.
HEMPEL, GUST.-Aurum, Cannabis, North magnet, Thuja.
HEMPEL, H.-Bell.
HERRMANN, CHRISTIAN THEODORE-Argent., Aurum, Bell.,
Bry.. Bis., Camph., Chelid.. China, Cyclam., Ledum, Phos. ac.,
Ruta, Sarsap., Spig,, Stannum, Staph.
HORNBURG, CHR. G.-Acon., Arnic., Arsen., Asarum, Bell.,
Bry., China, Cicuta, Coccul., Colocynth., Digit., Helleb., Man-
ganum, Menyanthes, Merc.. Puls., Rheum, Rhus, Ruta, Spig.,
Spong., Squilla, Staphisagria.
HUGO-Cannabis s.
KUMMER, ERNST-Arnic., Bell., Hell., South magnet, Spigel.,
Staphis., Taraxacum.
LANGHAMMER, CHR. FR.-Angustura, Argentum, Arnic.,
Arsen., Aurum, Bell., Bismuth, Calc. acet., Chelid., China,
Cicuta, Cina., Coccul., Coloc., Conium., Cyclamen, Digit., Dro-
sera, Euphras., Guaiacum., Helleb., Hyos., Ipec., Ledum, North
magnet, Manganum, Menyanthes, Merc., Muriat. ac., Oleander,
Phos. ac., Ruta, Sambuc., Spig., Spongia, Stannum, Staphis.,
Taraxacum, Thuja, Verbascum.
LEHMANN, CHR. F. G.-China, Rhus t.
8
STORY OF THE PROVERS
LEHMANN, J. G.-Bell., China, Digit., Ipec., Spong.
MEYER, F. R.—Angust., Argent., Arsenic, Chelid., China,
Digit, Phos. ac., Spig.
MICHLER, C.-Angustura, Bryonia, China, North magnet.,
Pulsat., Rhus t.
MOECKEL, A. F.-Bellad., Menyanthes.
MOSSDORF, THEODORE-Angust., Capsic.. Helleb., Squilla,
Verbascum.
MULLER-Dulcamara.
NENNING, CAJ.-Dulcamara.
ROSAZEWSKY-Ferrum, Taraxacum.
RUECKERT, E. FERD.-Acon., Bry., Digit., Dulc., Hell., Pul-
sat.. Rheum, Rhus t.
RUECKERT, LEOP. E.-Asarum., Bell., Cina, Colocynth., Man-
ganum.
RUMMEL, F.-Merc.
SCHOENIKE-Opium.
SCHROEDER-Rhus t.
STAPF, ERNST-Acon., Arnic., Arsen., Asarum, Bell., Bry.,
Camphor, Cannabis, Cham., China, Cina, Coloc., Digit., Dulc.,
Hell., Hepar, Hyos., Ipec., South magnet., Manganum, Merc.,
Moschus, Muriat. ac., Opium, Phosph. ac., Pulsatilla, Rhus,
Ruta, Spigel., Spongia, Squilla, Staphis.
TEUTHORN, J. CHR. DAV.-Chelid., China, Digit., Guaiacum,
Ledum, Manganum, Menyanthes, Phosphor. ac., Rheum, Sarsa-
parilla, Squilla, Staphis., Thuja, Veratrum.
TRINKS AND HARTLAUB-Cannabis, Coccul., Dulcam., Igna-
tia, Rhus t.
URBAN, F. C.-Manganum.
WAGNER, GUST.-China, Dulcam., Spong., Thuja.
WAHLE, WILHELM-Acon., Cannabis, Coccul., Dulcam., Man-
ganum, Nux vom.
WALTHER, FR.-Chelid., China, Ledum, Spigel., Squilla,
Sulph.
WENZEL, JUL.—Manganum.
WISLICENUS, W. E.--Angust., Argentum, Arnica, Aurum,
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
9
Bell., Calc. acet., Camphor, Capsicum, China, Conium, Dros.,
Euphras., Hell., Hyoscyam., Menyanthes, Mur ac., Phos. ac.,
Ruta, Sambuc., Spigel., Spong., Squilla, Stannum, Thuja.
Dr. Hughes, in his "Sources of the Homœopathic Materia
Medica" (London, Turner, 1877), gives the names of the
provers, but omits Adam, Caspari, Flaming, Von Gersdorf,
Hartlaub, H. Hempel, Hugo, Muller, Nenning, Rummel,
Schoenike, Schroder, and Trinks.
Hering says of these provers: "Next to the practicing physi-
cians outside of Leipsic, E. Stapf and G. W. Gross, they (a few
students who had formed a class in Leipsic to attend the lectures
of Hahnemann) were the first who assisted Hahnemann in his
explorations."*
* Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 173.
10
STORY OF THE PROVERS
PART II.
BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROVERS.
ADAM.
Of Adam, who proved the animal and vegetable charcoal,
nothing is known except that he was a Russian physician.
Hahnemann in two places in the Chronischen Krankheiten
mentions Adam as Adams, although in the English edition of
the Materia Medica Pura the name is given as Adam.
Dr. Bojanus says that Adam, who, in the year 1823, had be-
come acquainted with Hahnemann in Germany, was the first to
practice according to his teachings in St. Petersburg, Russia.
It has also been claimed that he introduced Homœopathy into
the kingdom of the Czar.
AHNER.
ANTON. BAEHR.
No data has been obtained regarding these provers.
HULDA BECHER.
Of Hulda Becher Hering says: "Went to parts unknown,"
and then gives a list of his provings. No other reference to him
has been found.
CARL CASPARI.
He was the son of a village minister åt Zschorlau, near
Delitzsch. He studied and graduated at Leipzic. He was the
* Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 176.
†Rapou, Histoire de la Doctrine Medicale Homœopathique, Vol. ii.,
p. 130–36. Kleinert's Geschichte der Homoopathie, p. 130.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
II
grandson of the Prof. D. Schott. In 1822 he delivered a course
of lectures on practical surgery, to the stude its at Leipsic, being.
at the same time attracted to the teachings of Hahnemann.
Won by these unchangeable principles, he relinquished a bril-
liant future in a celebrated school for a place, perhaps obscure,
with those who were subject to ridicule.
After serious studies he published a work entitled "My
Observations Upon Homœopathy." He sought to reconcile the
two doctrines. Having friends in both camps he attempted an
impossible amalgamation between Homoeopathy and Allopathy.
Surgery had been his favorite study, and his first researches
into Homœopathy were to determine the reciprocal influence of
this branch on the two parties in the art of healing. He pub-
lished many memoirs upon the subject. He believed that sur-
gery and medicine need no longer be divided, but that with the
aid of Homœopathy surgical diseases could be more successfully
treated. Rather than disturb his researches he refused the chair
of Homoeopathy at the University of Cracow, offered at the sug-
gestion of the Consul General at Leipsic by the Russian Secre-
tary of State, M. de Freigang. Caspari especially excelled in
didactic writings. He was actively engaged in his literary
work at Leipsic when, sometime in the beginning of the year
1828, he was attacked with the smallpox, during an epidemic,
and, being delirious, during the absence of his nurse he got
hold of a loaded gun with which he shot himself through the
head. This painful accident happened on February 15, 1828.*
Caspari during the latter part of his life relinquished his
notions regarding the union of the Allopathic and Homœopathic
schools and became a zealous Homœopath.
It is said that Hahnemann did not like him, and this amal-
gamation plan is cited to account for this dislike. He was at
the time of his death about thirty years of age.
Rapou says of Caspari, that he had made electricity in connec-
tion with Homoeopathic therapeutics a special study. He had
designed to write a monograph upon the subject, but the multi-
plicity of his other literary labors prevented it, and he accorded
this a vast power of healing that clinical experience did not up-
hold him in.t
* Hom. World, Vol. xxiv., p. 497.
† Rapou, Vol. ii, pp. 208, 210.
12
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Hartmann thus speaks of him:* "At this time (1826) two men
were living whose premature death was a sad loss to Homœopathy,
for both were gifted men, and their works testify that their powers
of mind were such as the Creator intrusts to but few. I refer
to Dr. Caspari and Dr. Hartlaub, Sr., concerning whom I can
give no information except as regards their scientific character,
for of their lives I knew but little. Dr. Caspari was the son of
a very estimable country pastor, residing at Zschorlau near
Delitsch, whose strictly religious character seems to have been
inherited by his son, in whom it might have produced an over-
excitement (though in this I may be mistaken), which rendered
him not quite accessible by everyone; I must, at least, infer from
his general deportment that he was possessed of an insufferable
haughtiness, which seemed to be based upon a fancy that he was
exalted above all others.
"I cheerfully acknowledge, however, that I might have seen
more than really existed, and perhaps this false observation is to
be attributed to my snail house nature, the cause of which might
have been found in my limited pecuniary means; but thus far
my judgement was perfectly correct, that Caspari labored under
an intellectual over-excitement, which manifested itself in eccen-
tricities during his last sickness, and was, in fact, the occasion
of his death. Caspari accomplished much at a time when
Homœopathy needed perfecting in every direction; it matters
not whether he was incited to undertake his many labors spon-
taneously, or upon the suggestion of others, it is enough that he
always comprehended his subject justly and enriched the science
by its development. Thus he felt deeply, with all Homœopaths
then living, that the rapid spread of the new system among the
people must depend upon the degree in which it enlisted the
sympathy of the public. Fully possessed of this conviction he
undertook the preparation of his work upon Homœopathic
Domestic Medicine, in which he accomplished his purpose in a
manner which leaves nothing more to be desired.
(6
'Thus Caspari, by the preparation of his Dispensatory, oc-
casioned the publication of the present Homoeopathic Pharma-
copoeia. And who knows whether by his proving of Carbo vege-
tabilis he might not have excited Hahnemann to undertake the
proving of both the charcoals. I am not quite positive as regards
‡ All. hom. Zeit., Vol. xxxix., p. 289. N. W. J. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 233.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
13
this last fact, but remember that Hahnemann was at one time quite
angry at Caspari and cannot tell whether it was because he was
always displeased with those who anticipated him. From all
that has been said it is evident enough that Caspari was a man
of intellect and great attainments, and would have rendered
Homœopathy many an essential service."
WRITINGS.
De jejunii in morbis sanandis usu. Lipsiæ. Rueckmann. 1822.
Anatomico-chirurgical Treatise on Dislocations, together with a post-
script on complicated Dislocations. Leipsic. Kohler. 1821.
System of Surgical Dressings systematically arranged and reduced to a
Science. Leipsic. Zirges. 1824. (First edition. 1822.)
Medical House Friend, or Self-help in the Treatment of Diseases. Leipsic.
Leich. 1823.
Injuries to the Head and their Treatment, from the oldest times to the
present, with new ideas and a Treatise on Inflammation. Leipsic. Lehu-
hold. 1823.
Stone in the Kidney, Bladder aud Gall-bladder; its origin and chemical
diagnostic and therapeutic consideration. Leipsic. Fleischer. 1823.
Vade Mecum of Spring-Curing, or a treatise on the Judicious Use of Herb
and Bath-cures, etc. Leipsic. Lehnhold. 1823.
My Experience in Homœopathy; an unprejudiced estimation of Hahne-
mann's System. Leipsic. Lehnhold. 1823.
Handbook of Dietetics for all Ranks. Arranged according to the Homœo-
pathic principles. Leipsic. Lehnhold. 1825.
Homœopathic Pathology; also under the title: Library for Homœopathic
Medicine and Materia Medica. Leipsic. Focke. 1827-28. Second
edition. 1834.
Vol. I. Homœopathic Pathology. Vol. II. General Homœopathic Diag-
nosis. Vol. III. General Homoeopathic Therapeutics.
Dispensatorium Homœopathicum. Edited by Hartmann. Leipsic. Baum-
gartner. 1829. (Latin.)
Homœopathic Dispensatory for Physicians and Druggists. Edited by
Hartmann. Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1825. Fifth edition. 1834. Seventh
edition. 1852. Also published under title: Homœopathic Pharmacopœai.
Homœopathic Domestic and Traveller's Physician. Edited by Fr. Hart-
mann. Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1826. Fifth edition. 1835. Tenth edition,
1851. (Has been translated into English.)
Catechism of Homœopathic Dietetics for the Sick. Leipsic. Baumgartner.
1825. Second edition, edited by Dr. Gross. Leipsic. 1831. Published
also under the title: Catechism for the Sick.
Catechism of the Manner of Living for Young Wives. Leipsic. Baum-
gartner. 1825.
14
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Hand-Book for the Newly Married. Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1825. Second
edition, edited by Hartmann. 1834.
Investigation as to the Medical Virtues of Charcoal from Beech-wood.
Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1826.
Demonstration of the Truth of the Homœopathic Method of Healing as
founded on the Laws of Nature, according to the Experience of Bigel.
Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1828.
W. CLAUSS, C. A. CUBITZ, JOH. GOTT. FLAMMING.
No data of these gentlemen has been discovered.
KARL GOTTLOB FRANZ.
Karl Gottlob Franz was born May 8, 1795, in Plauen in the
Royal Saxon Voigtland where his father was a respectable well-
to-do citizen and baker.† After attending the high school here
and being fully prepared for college, he went, in the year 1814,
to the University of Leipsic to devote himself according to the
wishes of his parents to the study of theology, but soon follow-
ing his own internal impulse, exchanged this for the study of
medicine. In Leipsic he attended the lectures of the most cele-
brated teachers in this department and acquired a thorough
knowledge of Allopathic medicine. From his childhood, owing
to a wrongly treated cutaneous eruption, he had suffered from
various considerable chronic ailments, and he found himself com-
pelled in Leipsic to seek medical help. He was induced by
another medical student to apply to S. Hahnemann, who was
then living in Leipsic and lecturing on Homoeopathy.
This meeting decided the future scientific direction of Franz,
for as he was indebted for the restoration of his health then very
much shattered, to the medical treatment of Hahnemann, his
conversations and communications concerning medicines and
especially concerning Homoeopathy induced him to give par-
ticular attention to the latter. Since the power of truth
shows itself always and gloriously victorious with all pure,
unprejudiced minds, and fills them with the deepest love
for the truth the more they become familiar with it, so also, here.
After having convinced himself theoretically and practically of
*Archiv_fur die hom. Heilkunst, Vol. xv., pt. 3, p. 167.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
15
the reality and worth of Homoeopathy our Franz became its
zealous friend and follower. As such he joined himself closely
and trustingly to Hahnemann and the little troop who shared
his views, and he especially enriched our knowledge of remedial
agents with many and important symptoms which were the re-
sult of accurate and conscientious provings which he undertook
with much intelligence, exactness and with considerable self-
sacrifice.
The Materia Medica Pura of Hahnemann and the Archiv
fur die homoopathische Heilkunst give weighty testimony to
these meritorious efforts of our friend. His name is often found
in them, and it will continue to be mentioned with honor among
the most efficient investigators in this field as long as genuine
provings are valued and estimated according to their true worth.
Although he was made happy on the one side by the ever
brighter light of the newly gained truth, there was no lack on
the other hand of hardships which lay in wait for him on this
new and thorny path. To his fellow-students who did not know
Homœopathy except from the presentation of their teachers and
thus only in a very defective and perverted manner, Homo-
opathy was an abomination, and everyone who received it a fool;
thus he was shunned, mocked, and was also distressed in many
other ways under the pretext of medical trials. So his stock of
medicines was repeatedly sealed up and confiscated, and he him-
self on account of unauthorized cures, as they were called, was
subjected to considerable fines; though many others of his fellow-
students did the same, only not in the hated Homœopathic
manner.
In the year 1820 he was even involved by some physicians of
Leipsic in a very distressing law-suit lasting several years,
though it ended favorably for him.
[
In spite of these harrassing and discouraging trials, he never-
theless remained immovably faithful to the good cause and ad-
vanced it by word and deed, as well in its internal development
as against attacks from without. In the year 1825 he thought
it best to accept a medical diploma. On this occasion he wrote
and defended his inaugural dissertation: "Monographiæ de
labio leporino, specimen 1." Shortly afterwards he accepted an
invitation of the Countess von Trautmannsdorf to Vienna, who
wished to have a Homœopathic physician near her to direct her
16
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Homœopathic cure.
He remained in this relation at Vienna and
at Pressburg for nine months and returned to Leipsic rewarded
by the satisfaction of the Lady Countess which she also testified
by valuable presents and keepsakes. He then devoted himself
with zeal and success to his Homœopathic practice.
In the year 1827 he married and lived a happy though child-
less marriage life. In his extended practice he enjoyed the firm
confidence of his numerous patients, and also the most favor-
able results in his purely Homoeopathic treatment of the same,
so that a happy future seemed to open before him, recompensing
him for his many trials. Unfortunately, however, the germs of
the chronic malady which had been latent since his youth, de-
veloped anew, causing the production of the most painful and
destructive ailments, namely, those of the liver and of the blad-
der. Later, also that of the lungs; which organs in the autopsy
after his death were found in a state altogether precluding the
possibility of cure. These long continued and severe bodily
sufferings, as may easily be conceived, operated to check his
literary and practical activity, so that during the last years he
could only practice but little and still less could he communi-
cate from the rich treasure of his experiences to the art to which
he was so entirely devoted. Nevertheless his last efforts and his
last wishes were devoted to Homœopathy, and to his patients to
whom he had ever been a loving, faithful and careful friend and
physician. So he departed November 8, 1835, peacefully and
quietly, after unspeakable bodily sufferings, faithfully tended
by his excellent wife and several trusty friends.
His memory will ever be dear to those who were more closely
acquainted with him and to all friends of genuine Homoeopathy.
Sit illi terra levis !
STAPF.
Hartmann says:* Franz, at the time I made his acquaintance,
was Hahnemann's assistant. He was a man of great intellect,
but for many years was grievously oppressed by bodily suffer-
ings which at length brought him to an early grave. He went
to the University a year before I did, to study theology; he came
to Leipsic out of health, and after taking medicine for years,
wtihout any considerable progress towards the restoration of his
*N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 186. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 240.
Kleinert's Geschichte der Homoopathie, p. 100. All. hom. Zeit., Vol.
xxxviii., p. 321.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
17
health, which he had lost in consequence of a badly treated erup-
tion, he came to the determination to take no more, and it is
probable that, if he had carried out this purpose with his usual
firmness, he would not have been introduced by a friendly medi-
cal student to Hahnemann and his new doctrine. He resolved
to consult Hahnemann, and was not only cured, but found that
Hahnemann's conversation upon medicine, and especially his
clear and forcible exposition of his simple method of cure, had
awakened in him quite other desires than those with which he
had taken leave of his parents; he changed his purpose, became
physician, then Hahnemann's Secretary, and indeed his very
right hand man.
Assuredly few would have shown such perseverance as he did.
As is well known, Hahnemann, at that time, no longer visited
patients; those who wished to consult him came to his house,
and where this was not possible they sent some friend; hence,
Hahnemann had no further need of an assistant, and Franz
would have been of no use to him had he not engaged in artisti-
cal and merely mechanical labors. He was a good botanist, at
least he knew all the officinal plants accurately and their pecu-
liar localities; he had spared no pains to make himself exactly
acquainted with the peculiar soil of every species of plants; when
he knew this he gave himself no rest till he had traced the
plant, accurately, through all its known conditions and relations.
When it was once in Hahnemann's collection then no time
was lost in preparing it as fast as possible for medical use; both
then labored with diligence-no one was ashamed to perform
the humblest labor, and the chemical laboratory was a sanctum
from which we were as difficult to drive as a fox from his bur-
row; but, together with the artistic labors, there was a two-fold
mechanical labor for which no one envied Franz; indeed, I
would have prefered the most laborious out-door employment;
in the first place was the arranging of the symptoms of the drug
in accordance with Hahnemann's previously directed scheme,
which must be done nearly every day, lest the new material con-
stantly coming in from the prover should accumulate on his
hands; secondly, the frequent copying of each particular symp-
tom, so as to arrange them alphabetically in their various loca-
tions. This was Franz's almost daily labor, and he engaged in
it every day with new zeal, never wearying, so that, by his in-
18
STORY OF THE PROVERS
creasing amiability, he might gain Hahnemann's esteem and
confidence and that of his family.
It may be thought that he was a machine. By no means. A
man of such fine intellect might well give himself up to mechani-
cal labor, from love and esteem of such an extraordinary teacher,
but so to mistake his position as to consider him fit for nothing
else would argue but little knowledge of his character. He be-
longed to those most eager for the spread of Homoeopathy, and
after he was cured he became an earnest prover and greatly en-
riched the Materia Medica at this time and later with provings
valuable for their accuracy. He was later engaged alone in the
study of certain remedies, the scrupulous proving of which he
undertook with great care and precision and with no trifling
self-denial. Hahnemann's Materia Medica and the Archives
(Stapf's) bear abundant testimony to his meritorious labors.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
In 1821, at the instigation of Dr. Clarus (of the Leipsic
University), the Homoeopathic medicines were taken from the
house of Hornburg and Franz, on the part of the Court of the
University and the first actuary and by the aid of the two
beadles, and were burned in St. Paul's church yard.
A prosecution befell him in case of a lady who suffered from
phthisis florida. As all patients of this description ever hope to
regain their health by change of physicians, so did this one;
she had felt passably well under Franz's treatment, but this did
not satisfy her; she wanted more; she wanted to be cured-a
very reasonable desire, which she hoped to realize by subject-
ing herself to the treatment of Dr. Clarus. The Counsellor
came, and a bitter accusation of his predecessor ensued; he was
reproached with many sins of omission to which the death of
the lady was attributed, though she was previously doomed to a
certain death; in addition to this a second and third accusation
was brought against him; he had practised, being as yet un-
qualified, and more than that, had dispensed his own medicines.
This was surely enough to put the unlucky Franz out of the
way of doing mischief, if not forever, at least for a long time,
and so it happened; he committed the affair to an experienced
lawyer and betook himself for a time to his parents at Plauen,
where he was compelled to stay half a year on account of this
prosecution. Although nothing material could be urged
*
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
19
against him, yet he was condemned to pay the costs which had
accumulated beyond all reason, and Leipsic was lost to him as a
field for medical practice.
It was Franz who suggested at the celebration of 1829 the
idea of the "Central Homopathic Union."
Rapou says: The labors of Franz exercised an important
influence in perfecting our doctrines. He was an exact observer,
a stranger to theoretic discussions, devoting his time to studies
of the Materia Medica, and experimentation on the remedies;
an operation painful and laborious which does not win a brill-
iant name, but which gained him great estimation in the minds
of the more thoughtful.
I saw him with my father in 1832, he was then a man already
worn out with experimenting with poisonous substances; his
delicate organization had received serious injury. He weakened
little by little during our stay in Leipsic, and we departed re-
gretting that we were no longer able to profit by the treasures
of his knowledge of drugs. Fortunately the Archives published
many of his works and the Materia Medica Pura of Hahnemann
is partly composed of his works.
Hering speaks of Franz as "the noble self-sacrificing man."t
Lohrbacher says: Of the other disciples Franz was a per-
son of some importance. According to Hartmann's account
he was a man of rare gifts, and this is borne out by his drug-
provings, which are distinguished by their delicate and acute
observation as well as by their preciseness. They are an orna-
ment to our Materia Medica. Being a good botanist he it was
who collected the indigenous plants, from which tintures were
prepared. He acted for many years as Hahnemann's amanu-
ensis, and he preformed with diligence and perseverance the
very tedious and mechanical labor of arranging the symptoms
contributed by various provers into the schema invented by
Hahnemann. He was a great favorite with Hahnemann as also
with his fellow workers, whose hearts he gained by his mild and
thoughtful nature. He died after years of suffering, in the
prime of life.
He published nothing in book form.
**“Histoire de la doctrine medicale homœopathique," Vol. ii., p. 140.
"Hahn. Monthly," Vol. vii., p. 175.
Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 456.
ORD
20
STORY OF THE PROVERS
HEINRICH AUGUST VON GERSDORFF.
But little data has been obtained. In the Zeitung appears the
following short note of his death: "Leipsic 30 September. This
day died at Eisenach, President Dr. August Freiherr von Gers-
dorff in his seventy-eighth year. The deceased has done much
toward spreading Homœopathy.
He was a nobleman living near Eisenach. In the proving of
Carbo veg.
Hahnemann speaks of him as State Councillor
Baron von Gersdorff.
WRITINGS.
Cure of dangerous Diseases by Idiosomnambulism and by the Homoeo-
pathic Medicines prescribed by the patient when in a magnetic clairvoyant
state. Eisenach, Baerecke. 1834.
GUSTAV WILHELM GROSS.*
Rummel, his friend and fellow-worker, after his death thus
wrote of him:
Gustav Wilhelm Gross was the eldest of eight children. His
father was the pastor, Joh. Gottfried Gross. He was born at
Kaltenborn, near Juterbogk, September 6, 1794. His mother's
maiden name was Christiane Eleonore and she was born a
Schuricht.
After receiving his first instruction in the home of his parents
he attended, from 1809 to Michaelmas 1813, the gymnasium at
Naumburg, on the Saale. He was obliged to give up his inten-
tion of going from there to Wittenburg to study medicine, since.
this university had been discontinued; and so he went at
Easter, 1814, to Leipsic, and there applied himself to medical
studies. This circumstance is important, for the reason that he
there became acquainted intimately with Hahnemann, whereby
his life's career received a definite direction, which, but for this
acquaintanceship might have been delayed to a later period.
Unfortunately I have not been able to learn anything more
definite concerning his early education. To his close ac-
quaintanceship, and confidential intercourse with the founder of
•
*Rummel's account, in Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. xxxiv., p. 193. Brit. Jour.
Hom., Vol. vi., pp. 137, 425. Stapf's Archiv, Vol., xxiii., pt. 3, p. 132. See
also Kleinert, p. 113.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
21
Homœopathy is due the fact that he then already belonged to
those investigators who, under the eye and special guidance of
the master, were helping to furnish the materials for building up
the true system of healing; and, in fact, he began his experi-
ments with Chamomilla.
It is certain that this practice in testing the virtues of medi-
cines especially contributed to develop in him that fine observing
faculty, which he had in an eminent degree, as well as to give
such knowledge of remedies as is possessed by but few Homœo-
paths. He had seen the infancy of Homoeopathy, had grown up
with it and had observed many of the effects of its medicines
upon himself; and all this, combined with his unusual faculty
of observation, helped him to find his way in the wilderness of
symptoms before they perplexed his powers of mind by their
vast number. Moreover, the guidance given him by Hahne-
mann may have induced him to keep aloof from the purely fine
spun theories of the schools and to pay more attention to the
practical side of the art of healing, so as to become the success-
ful physician that he was, in the true sense of the word.
Because his native place had meanwhile become Prussian, he
left Leipsic in the fall of 1816, and won for himself on January
6, 1817, the degree of doctor of medicine in the University of
Halle, on the Saal, by vindicating his Dissertatio inauguralis
medica, quae versatur in questione: Num usui sit in curatione
morborum nomenclatura.
Already, in the spring of the same year, he was practicing as
a Homœopathic physician in Juterbogk; but he was obliged, be-
cause the Prussian medical statutes had come in force mean-
while, to undergo in the winter of 1817-18 the medical ex-
aminations authorized by the Government. Besides this he had
to contend with many cares and privations, since his means were
very limited, so that he was actually necessitated to perform his
studies and labors in the dwelling room of a tradesman; and
only his strong powers of endurance and his fervent religious
spirit enabled him to live down his oppressive burden of toil and
care.
These inconveniences continued to harass his practice for a
number of years; for the newness of the Homœopathic method
of healing roused many opponents, and his continued testing of
medicines on his own person, which he did not disguise, led
22
STORY OF THE PROVERS
people to believe that he was really making only experiments
with his sick people also.
From the Easter of the year he received his permit to practice
medicine, up to the time of his death, he was constantly busy as
a Homœopathic physician in Juterbogk, for he had declined a
call to Magdeburg and another to Brunswick.
-
Although his residence was only a small provincial town, yet
his success as a physician gradually procured for him an ex-
tensive practice in a wide field of operation, even as far as Berlin,
several miles distant; and besides this patients frequently came
to him from a distance or consulted him by letter.
His extensive practice as a physician did not prevent him from
being busy with his pen. Already in 1822, he was an industrious
collaborator, and the founder of the Archiv fur die homoopathische
Heilkunst, which was published by Stapf, with the assistance of
several young members of the new school of medicine. Besides
provings of medicines and clinical articles, he contributed many
solid essays and important critical works. Among these is his
criticism of Prof. Heinroth's "Anti-Organon" in 1826, which
was published as a supplement to the 5th volume of the Archiv,
and also issued separately, and which is characterized with
great compass and depth of thought. He began editing the
Archiv in its 16th volume (1837), and worked, then as before, in
connection with Stapf as a director and promulgator of the new
ideas which he accepted and in the real Hahnemannian spirit.
When the founding and editing of the Allgemeine homoo-
pathische Zeitung was proposed to me (Rummel), in 1832, I ac
cepted the proposition only on condition that Gross and Hart-
mann should be associate editors. Both of these friends consented,
and Gross faithfully and diligently aided the undertaking until
the 31st volume, when death called him away much too soon.
He never opposed the publication of what his own views dis-
posed him to exclude.
Homopathy favored me* also at the outset with the friend-
ship of Stapf, who lived near me, and through him I became
acquainted, almost at the same time, with Hahnemann, who after,
the publication of my "Light and Dark Side of Homopathy"
(Licht und Schattenseite der Homoopathie), became more
friendly, and also with Gross, who lived at a distance and who
(*Rummel).
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
23
favored me with his cordial friendship. We three saw each other
frequently, especially in Hahnemann's house at Coethen, which
was in many respects a desirable rendezvous for our friendly
meetings.
There I learned to appreciate more and more the eminent
worth of Gross as a man, friend and physician. His health was
not materially affected at that time though he must have had
to endure much hardship and excessive toil; but his features and
the greenish gray color of his somewhat puffed up cheeks, then
already gave warning of the unseen enemy which was to end his
busy life.
On first getting acquainted with him one might have thought.
him to be of a phlegmatic nature, for he seemed somewhat cold
and but little sympathetic; but when an idea reigned in his mind,
his rather sleepy features became animated and he gave utterance
with ready tongue and in eloquent language to his enthusiastic
thoughts.
He was the very opposite of a charlatan; for he was earnest
and truthful, and one could readily read his inmost thoughts.
He won the full confidence of his patients, not by his outward
appearance, but rather by his kindly nature and active benev-
olence.
New ideas animated not only his countenance, as already
stated, but also his whole being. He grasped them, as it were,
with a fiery zeal; and since his frankness would not permit him
to lock up his soul-stirring thoughts for any length of time in
his bosom to mature, he not only soon gave them words but also
caused these words to make a deep impression. This peculiarity
of his mind doubtless beguiled him into a certain over-hastiness
and exaggeration, which he must have atoned for by many sad
hours and many bitter reproofs of conscience. In fact, this pe-
culiarity even caused him sometimes to incur the estrangement
of Hahnemann, to whom he exhibited the despondent heart of a
despairing father,* which the stern reformer interpreted as an
apostasy.
He thereby showed himself not to be inflexible to the admoni-
tions of his friends and to be less one-sided than would have been
*At the death of Gross' child, when he told Hahnemann that Homo-
opathy could not cure everything, and for which Hahnemann was greatly
displeased.
24
STORY OF THE PROVERS
thought, as I have often observed; but the oft too little re-
strained remorse of his conscience drove him to bitter des-
pondency.
He was so thoroughly convinced of the truth and superiority
of Homœopathy that he followed unswervingly the teachings of
its founder without bringing his own opinions to the test of a
sacrifice in this matter; and so Hahnemann loved him dearly
and esteemed him highly. But he did not hesitate for a
moment to oppose Hahnemann when he saw the right on the
other side, as was the case in the dispute between Hahnemann
and Moritz Muller.
Bitter were the reproofs which he experienced from the
literary side of his conscience; and he felt them the more keenly
the more he manifested too slight enthusiasm in defending the
truth of his views or opinions. Later in life he escaped the in-
fluence of these affronts to his conscience, in that he completely
overlooked them. Herein also lay the reason why he partici-
pated less in the conventions of Homœopathic physicians than
one would have supposed in view of his genuine enthusiasm for
the cause.
Although a member of the Central Union he stayed
away from the meetings in the latter part of his life, and refused
most decisively the position of director repeatedly assigned to
him.
He no longer felt at home among the young generation, as he
called them, as his old acquaintance but seldom attended. It
must not be supposed, though, that he had got thereby into an
isolated position. He maintained a spirited correspondence with
friends and with several Homoeopathic physicians, and took an
active and eager part in all that could promote the success of
Homœopathy.
The Silesian Union of Physicians, the Free Union, of Leipsic,
and the Homoeopathic societies, of Paris, Palermo and Madrid
elected him an honorary member. The government, too, ac-
knowledged his services and appointed him a member of the
Chief Examining Board of Homœopathic Physicians.
Where it was very important that he should be an active
worker, as in the case of the Hahnemann jubilee, he was on
hand. He not only furnished most of the matter for the jubilee
memorial, but also elaborated most of it himself and then cheer-
fully handed it over to me for remodelling, improving and ap-
pending literary mementoes.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
25
As in his public life there occurred many a gloomy experience
to becloud his pure joy in the success of Homœopathy and of its
future diffusion, so in his private life, sorrow was coupled with
the blessing of a happy marriage. He married, in 1818,
Marianne Herrmann, daughter of Pastor Herrmann, and they had
five children. But death took from this happy family a promis-
ing son and a beloved daughter, leaving but two sons, a daughter
and the wife. One of the sons became a physician and the other
chose the position of a master builder.
Neither his own medical skill, nor that of his friend Stapf,
nor a second sojourn at Karlsbad, had been able to restore his
deranged and enlarged liver to its normal condition. And to
these ills were added gouty pains, dropsy and oppression in the
chest; and a sojourn during the last summer at the Baltic Sea,
from which he hoped to obtain relief, seems to have been disad-
vantageous to his weak and enfeebled body.
In order to recuperate as much as possible, he went to live
with his son-in-law (who had already became a widower),
Pastor Weise, in Klebitz, near Zahna. Here an easy and peace-
ful death suddenly overtook him at six o'clock in the morning
of September 18, 1847, a death much too soon for his sorrowing
family, for the friends, for the sick who sought his professional
skill and, more than all else, much too soon for the cause of
Homœopathy. But his works still live in the grand results they
have achieved for medical skill and science. [RUMMEL.]
Hartmann who was a fellow student, says:* Gross, too, was a
friend most valued by us all, and my intimacy with him con-
tinued till his premature death. However unassuming and
modest he was, it was not easy for one, full of the joy and buoy-
ancy of youth, to associate himself with a man naturally so
serious that he seemed almost cold and but little communicative,
and it was only after a long intercourse with him, that I at last
learned that Gross could not only be a cheerful but a truly
sympathizing friend. Although at the university a year before
myself, yet he was but a little before me in making Hahnemann's
acquaintance.
When I first saw him at Hahnemann's house, I took him for a
* Kleinert's "Geschichte der Homoopathie," p. 99. N. W. J. Hom., Vol.
iv., p. 185. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 239. Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol.
xxxviii., p. 310.
26
STORY OF THE PROVERS
patient who wished to submit himself to Homoeopathic treatment,
since his whole outer man, his yellowish grey complexion, his
bloated countenance, his backwardness in conversation, were all
expressive of a diseased condition. As he left the room, how-
ever, before I did, I learned from Hahnemann that Gross had
engaged in Homœopathy with zeal, and that he bade fair to be
one of his best pupils; he earnestly recommended me to seek his
intimacy, and I never had occasion to regret having followed
his advice. It was necessary entirely to disregard his exterior,
for by this he gained the affections of none, and consider only
the inner man, the very kernel itself, for there one would soon
find his benevolent and warm disposition, and then it was im-
possible ever to separate from him unless one's own quarrel-
some or perverse disposition or distrust of his affection led to the
rupture.
Time has shown that Hahnemann justly considered him one
of his best pupils, for Gross was, in truth, during the whole
course of his practice, the most zealous Homoeopathist possible;
he never swerved from the course pointed out, and earnestly
contended for the cardinal points of the master's doctrine, and
even where he was of a different opinion he subjected his views
to those of Hahnemann. This devotion to Hahnemann he
practiced for a long time, till the many sad hours which he ex-
perienced from the frequent and bitter reproaches of his younger,
but differently thinking colleagues led him to change his mind
and determined him to use the same frankness in expressing his
divergent opinions that Hahnemann had used in declaring his
views. This led to discussions which were extremely unpleas-
ant, and he ever after leaned upon two stools, since he could
never quite agree with either party, yet he did not suffer himself
to be misled but ever remained a most zealous Homœopathist,
and did all in his power to advance the new system of cure.
Notwithstanding his sickly appearance Gross never suffered
from any disease while I knew him, hence Hahnemann did not
hesitate to accept him as a member of the Provers' Union; he
even hoped that Gross would derive advantage from the provings
and hence, if it were possible even for him to determine this
priori, he selected those remedies which he hoped would affect
the inner and apparently suffering organs of Gross and produce
consequent external manifestations. Gross was the most skillful
a
-
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
27
prover of us all, and the symptoms observed by him have a
great practical value. Indeed I place them with Franz and
Stapf, on an equality with Hahnemann's.
The following notice appeared in the British Journal of
Homœopathy:* Dr. Gross was one of Hahnemann's earliest
disciples, and from his first adoption of Homoeopathy up to his
death we find him actively engaged in the work of disseminat-
ing a knowledge of the new system, at one time in furnishing
practical and theoretical papers to the Archiv and editing that
journal in connection with Stapf, now engaged in the translation
of his master's works into Latin, and again occupied with the
editorship of the Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung, in con-
junction with Rummel and Hartmann, besides publishing divers
small works and being perpetually occupied in the proving of
new medicines, some of the most valuable of which we owe
entirely to him, and most of those given us by Hahnemann
being enriched by his experiments on himself and others.
Nor has his career been unmarked by deviations from Hahne-
mann's beaten path. Accordingly we find him practically op-
posing Hahnemann's precepts and giving larger doses than
usual; again we find him incurring Hahnemann's severe censure
for his Isopathic views. And after Hahnemann's death he im-
mediately broached his extraordinary views on dynamization
and the high dilutions.
Whatever may be the opinion of Dr. Gross's novel views and
therapeutic eccentricities, none will deny him the character of
indefatigable industry and untiring zeal in advancing the new
system, nor is it possible to doubt the sincerity of its convictions
nor his earnestness of purpose, and hereafter, when the sift-
ing hand of time shall have winnowed the good seed from the
chaff the name of Gross will be regarded and respected as that
of one of the stoutest champions of our faith-as that of one of
the largest contributors to our remedial treasury.
The Isopathic views spoken of above relate to the adoption by
Gross of Jenichen's potencies. In an article in the British
Journal, vol. v, on High Potencies, the author says:† Dr.
Gross's 'newest experiences' are to be found in the first volume
of the Neue Archiv, thirteen years after Herr von Korsakoff's
*Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. vi., p. 137.
†Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. v., p. 131.
28
STORY OF THE PROVERS
paper appeared, to which Dr. Gross refers rather cavalierly as
though he were unwilling that another should share the honors
of so notable a step in posology. Unlike the destiny of the
Russian nobleman's suggestions, which were met on all hands
by a contemptuous silence, this second edition by Dr. Gross
creates a vast sensation in the Homœopathic world, and raises an
acrimonious paper war with much shedding of ink and destruc-
tion of useful foolscap.
'Your model cures,' exclaims Gross, are as nothing at all
in comparison with the results gained by the high potencies! I
know what you will say, you skeptics, you will say Gross has
gone mad-Gross ist verruckt geworden.' *
* * * * * He
induced Herr Jenichen, of Wismar, a zealous Homoeopathic
amateur, to prepare 317 dilutions of the usual remedies, varying
from the 200th to the gooth, and even 1,500th.
In a note to the sketch of Gross, in the sixth volume of the
British Journal,* attention is called to the "Organon," 5th edi-
tion, page seventy, on which Hahnemann says: "The eccentric
upholders of this doctrine, especially Dr. Gross, vaunt this
Isopathy as the only true therapeutic rule and see nothing in the
similia similibus, but an indifferent substitute for it.
Lohrbacher says:† Gross, an apparently unsympathetic and
cold character, of unattractive appearance, of a hypochondriacal
and dreamy nature. A nearer acquaintance showed him to be
possessed of energy and industry, a warm-hearted man for the
cause and to his friends. As a drug prover he occupies one of
the foremost places. By his participation in the editing of the
Archiv and Allg. hom. Zeitung, as also by his other literary works,
whether of a defensive or didactic character, he has earned a per-
manent title to our remembrance. In his practice he held firmly
to the precepts of the master, with whom he remained in friendly
intercourse to the end of his life, notwithstanding the serious
differences that arose between Hahnemann and the most of his
disciples; though he never hesitated to oppose him in matters in
which he believed Hahnemann to be in the wrong.
A peculiar trait in his character was that he always espoused
new ideas with zeal, and came forward with his views upon
them before he had subjected them to a thorough and repeated
* Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. vi., p. 137.
+ Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 455.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
29
proof. I will only allude here to Isopathy and the high potencies.
The consequence of this was that he drew down on himself
many attacks and corrections, which occasioned him many bitter
hours and gave him the appearance of vacillation.
Rapou says of him:* Gross was one of the converts that
Hahnemann made during his course at Leipsic, between the years
1814 and 1816. He came a little after Stapf and is after him the
eldest of the Homoeopathic physicians. These two men adhered
more strictly to the opinions and principles of Homoeopathy than
did many others. When the Allg. hom. Zeitung was established,
and Rummel abandoned the Archiv, Gross remained faithful,
and his pen was in use for both journals. Gross had established
himself in the first years of his practice in the little village of
Juterbogk, situated near the Saxon frontier, upon the railroad
from Leipsic to Berlin, and he never left that place, where he
had easy communication with all his confreres. There, alone,
in the midst of an agricultural population, he gave himself
entirely, without distraction to his medical and scientific cor-
respondence.
To William Gross is due the honor of introducing into our
method the employment of mineral waters. He wrote a book upon
the Teplitz waters. He also made a study of the Karlsbad Springs.
He completed a study of the Karlsbad waters in 1843, with a
pathogenesis of 185 symptoms obtained from three bathers, one of
whom was a lady affected with a very light complaint, so that
the toxic effects of the waters were produced in all their purity.
The village where he lives is situated some distance from the
railroad, and I leaped joyously into the wagon that was to take
me on the shady road thither. I congratulated myself on re-
ceiving new data for my medical memoirs during my stay in the
country; I recalled my excursion with Attomyr.
Gross is a man of parts. I entered his dwelling and in-
troduced myself to a man, bilious, jaundiced, of a hypochon-
driacal manner, who immediately penetrated to the purpose of
my visit; he said to me in a tone but little affable: "Monsieur,
ask without any delay that which you wish to know because I
have only about twenty (vingtaine) minutes to give you."
Twenty minutes to a coufrere who had come three hundred
leagues to visit him. It was little, but I lost no time in
*Histoire de la doctrine Homoeopathique, Vol. 2., p. 430-600.
Gal
30
STORY OF THE PROVERS
psychological speculations and attributed this brusque and
morose humor to an aggravation of the liver complaint from
which Gross suffered. I entered at once upon the matter. The
twenty minutes expired and I retired. Seating myself in an
arbor in the village I noted my recollections of this short
conversation.
Gross employs exclusively the high dilutions and sometimes
goes as high as the 2000th.
Rapou here enters into an exposition of high potencies and
hopes that Gross will be restored to health, mentioning the fact
that he was in such an irritable and hypochondriacal condition
that he was unable to do justice to the subject discussed. He
says that Gross was of the small number of Homoeopathic
physicians who were devoted to the Homoeopathic treatment of
the diseases of children.
Stapf says* that he was at first destined for the clerical profes-
sion and was sent to the cathedral school at Naumburg, where
he soon distinguished himself in the study of the dead languages,
especially Hebrew. While there he caught the scabies, to the
improper treatment of which he was wont to ascribe his delicate
state of health in after life. He was induced to consult Hahne-
mann, in 1815, and soon became one of his most earnest disciples.
In the latter years of his life his practice averaged about 3,000
patients per annum, whose cases he always registered in the most
careful manner. In 1827 Hahnemann invited Stapf and Gross
to visit him and told them about his theory of psora.
In 1834
a very severe illness was nearly fatal; and in 1837 he was af-
fected with hepatic disease, and jaundice, and dropsy, from
which he was not expected to recover.
In 1843 he was appointed, by the King of Prussia, a member of
the Board of Examiners for Homoeopathic physicians.
In 1845 his malady increased to a frightful extent, and so
altered his appearance that he looked like an old man of eighty.
He partially recovered by the care of his friend Stapf, who took
him home to his house; but having again returned to the ardu-
ous duties of his profession his strength completely gave way,
and on the 16th September, 1847, perceiving his dissolution ap-
proaching, he exclaimed: "I now have no more to hope for on
earth, the account is closed, my path now tends upwards."
*Neue Archiv, Vol. xxiii., pt. 3, p. 132. Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. vi., p. 425.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
31
Owing to his wretched health which exercised an unfavorable
influence on his mind as well as on his body, Dr. Gross was not
at all calculated to impress one favorably at first sight; but a
short intercourse with him soon revealed the richness of mind
and the nobility of disposition concealed beneath the forbidding
exterior. He was esteemed and loved by all who knew him, as
a physician he inspired the greatest confidence, as a friend the
warmest attachment. His character was open, true hearted,
truthful and honest.
Notwithstanding occasional disputes and differences with
Hahnemann, he continued to correspond with the illustrious
founder of Homoeopathy almost uninterruptedly to the last, and
was esteemed by him as one of his best disciples.
WRITINGS.
Inaugural Dissertation: Num usui sit in curatione morborum nomencla -
tura. Halle. 1817.
Critical Examination of the Anti Organon, by Dr. Heinroth.
Also pub-
lished as a supplement to the first five volumes of the Archiv. Leip-
sic. Reclam. 1826.
Dietetic Guide for the Healthy and for the Sick, with notice of Homœo-
pathic Healing. Leipsic. Reclam. 1824.
The Homœopathic Healing Art and its Relation to the State. Leipsic.
Baumgartuer. 1829.
V
The Mineral Springs at Teplitz, with respect to their positive effects on
Healthy Men, and as an Antipsoric Remedy. With 8 cuts. Leipsic.
Reclam. 1832.
Concerning the Mode of Living of Parturient and Lying-in-Women and the
Dietetic and Therapeutic Treatment of the New Born Child. Leipsic.
Reclam. 1831. (From the Archiv f. d. hom Heilkunst.)
Concerning the Treatment of the Mother and the Suckling from the
Moment of Conception. A Handbook for the Newly Married. Dres-
den. Arnold. 1833. Also published in 1834 under the title:
Homœopathy and Life.
Co-editor of Archiv fur die homoopathische Heilkunst. Leipsic. 1837.
Co-editor of Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung. Leipsic. 1832-47. He
also assisted in translating the Materia Medica Pura into Latin, in
1826-8.
GUNTHER.
Of Gunther, who proved the North Pole of the Magnet, nothing
is known.
32
STORY OF THE PROVERS
SALOMO GUTMANN.
He was the first Homœopathic dentist. Hering says:* He
became famous by the very peculiar ocular inspection he forced
upon Prof. Jorg before a class of provers made up by the latter
for the purpose of breaking down Homœopathy.
Hartmann says:† Gutmann, a dentist, who from some source
had heard of Homœopathy, located at Leipsic about this time
(1816) or perhaps six months later. He sought Hahnemann's
acquaintance, thinking it might be of interest to dentistry. He
also joined the Provers' Union.
The following notice is of interest; it was published about
1834 or 1835:
NOTICE.
Pearls and precious stones, although they have only an
imaginary value, are not unfrequently esteemed more highly by
their possessors, are more carefully preserved and more assidu-
ously cleansed and cherished than the teeth. And yet this
precious gift of creative nature has been given to man as much
for his preservation as for his adornment. While the loss of
jewels, which yet may be replaced, is guarded against by every
precaution, man allows his teeth to be neglected until owing to
this carelessness and this omitted attention they decay and
are lost.
Then only man laments his carelessness, but it is then
too late. Nothing, not even the highest art, can ever replace
nature.
To prevent this painful loss the teeth should be cared for
while they are yet sound, and properly prepared dental medi-
caments indispensable for this purpose should be used. Five
minutes suffice to clean them, and this amount of time even the
most busy man can daily devote to his teeth. Their longer
preservation and the immunity from toothache sufficiently repay
a man for this expenditure of time as well as for the small annual
expense necessary to supply the proper dental medicaments and
appropriate tooth brushes.
To facilitate the proper care of the teeth I make known the
use of my dental medicaments, in the preparation of which I
have followed the teachings of nature, eschewing the pernicious
*Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 176.
†Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. xxxviii., p. 326. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 269.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
33
·
I
principles of following the fashions and prevailing practices. I
may, therefore, assuredly hope that every one who uses them, if
he accurately follows my directions, will receive from them the
benefits intended.
My method of operation is the following: The little tooth
brush is moistened with water, pressed on the tooth powder so
that a little of it may adhere to the brush, then the gums of the
upper teeth are brushed from above downwards, but the gums of
the lower teeth from below upwards; the gums are thus not
brushed across their breadth but lengthwise. The gums must
be brushed as carefully on the inner side as on the outside.
When the tooth powder is black and very fine, there often re-
mains, even after repeatedly rinsing the mouth, a black, ill-
looking rim between the loose still unsound gums. To remove
this take water into the mouth, and bending over the basin rub
the gums in the way above mentioned and repeat this until the
water flowing from the mouth is quite clear and the black rim
can no more be seen when looking into the looking-glass. When
the gums become sound again, and are firmly attached to the
teeth, this disagreeable feature will disappear.
When this has been done the tooth brush should be moistened
with the tooth tincture or with the mouth water, and the gums
should be rubbed with it repeatedly in the manner above de-
scribed. In this way the teeth will be cleansed at the same time.
With the looking-glass it will be seen whether the tooth brush
be properly directed and the gums rubbed in the manner directed,
for everything depends on this. When the gums are not sound
they will ache and bleed at first with this treatment, and with
the use of the tooth tincture; but if this practice is persevered in,
this pain soon ceases and the gums become sound. Let no one
think that it is only necessary to clean the teeth without clean-
ing the gums, especially when the gums bleed and are painful;
in such case brushing the gums is of very great importance.
These symptoms are the surest signs that the gums are in an
unhealthy state and must be healed, which can only be effected
in the mode indicated. We must also add that the best dental
medicaments will effect nothing if a worn out tooth brush or
one that is too large is used; for with such we can never so
conveniently brush the gums of all the teeth as with very small
brushes, which I have ordered made for the last twenty years
34
STORY OF THE PROVERS
and which I always keep on hand. With these the gums, of the
back molars can be cleaned on the inside and on the outside as
easily as those of the front incisors, even if the mouth is small
and the face full. This is not possible with the ordinary large
tooth brushes even when the cheeks are lean and the mouth
large. This brush, therefore, also does away with the various
forms of tooth brushes lately invented, and all who use the
small tooth brushes are so thoroughly convinced of their
superiority that they will never return to the use of the ordinary
large brushes.
LIST OF MY MEDICAMENTS.
Black tooth powder at the box at 7½ to 10 Ngr.
Red tooth powder, the box at 5 Ngr.
White mouth water at 20 and 10 Ngr the bottle.
Spirits to cure caries of the teeth. Hollow teeth, which can-
not be filled or where the right time for filling is passed, are
protected by these spirits from the rapid spread of the caries.
The bottle is 15 Ngr. These medicaments can all be bought at
the above prices at the store of Mr. Neubert in Zittau.
"My harmless remedies against toothache are also for sale in
the drug store there. A little vial costs 5 and the larger 10
Ngr. The cultured public in Bohemia, to which this circular is
chiefly addressed, are sufficiently familiar with the usual scope
of action of the dentist; but this announcement may be new to
them, that I insert artificial teeth, as well the single ones,
as whole sets, not only without pain, but also without any swell-
ing or subsequent troubles which so often attend this operation.
Of the truth of this assertion any tooth-patient who wishes
to give his confidence can become convinced by the written or
oral testimony of the public at Zittau. In Leipsic I shall stay
during the three fairs in Hain Street in Koestner's house, No. 1,
first floor. At other times in Dresden, Toeppergasse, No. 12,
first floor. At present my residence in Zittau is in the lower
Webergasse, in the house of Mr. Pretorius, third floor, where I
shall remain till April 4th.
S. GUTMANN, Dentist.
WRITINGS.
The Toothbrush. Is its Use on the Teeth Useful or Injurious? Dresden.
Adler Dietze.
1850.
The Dynamics of Dentistry according to the Principles of Homœopathy.
Leipzig. Kollmann. 1833.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
35
On the Treatment of the Teeth and the Gums. Leipsic. C. E. Kollmann.
1828.
The Importance of the Teeth, their Care and Cure. Leipsic. Kollmann.
1827. Second edition, 1829.
Candid Words to Friend and Foe Concerning the Interdict of the
Homœopathic Domestic Case of Tooth-Medicines. A small article in the
History of Homœopathy. Greiz, Kenning. 1831. Also by Kollmann,
in Leipsic, in 1833.
On the Simplification of the Rain and Shower Bath. Leipsic. Kollmann.
1835.
Advice to all Homœopathic Physicians.
FRIEDRICH HAHNEMANN.
<<
Friedrich Hahnemann, the son of Samuel Hahnemann, was
born at Dresden, November 30, 1786.* He attended the gym-
nasium at Torgau for his academical studies, from whence in the
year 1808 he went to Leipzig to the Medical School. The
Organon" appeared in 1810, and in 1811 one Dr. A. F. Hecker
made very bitter attacks upon it. Friedrich defended his
father's book and published a "Refutation" of the attacks,
through Arnold. Dresden. 1811.† In 1812 he defended his thesis,
De ulceris cancrosi ortu et Curatione, and received his degree at
Leipsic. Dudgeon says: After taking his degree at Leipsic he
contracted a matrimonial alliance with a widow, who, I believe,
still lives iu Dresden (1851) with a daughter; but who, accord-
ing to what I have heard, was not well qualified to make his
married life happy. This marriage gave great offense to his
father, and led to an estrangement betweeu them which was
never removed. (Lesser Writings p. 235). He soon after set-
tled at Wolkenstein, a small town in Misnia. Here he purchased
the drug store and was thus enabled to dispense his own medi-
cines. He followed the system of his father faithfully. He was
delicate in health, and was afflicted with spinal curvature.
Hartmann says: His great powers of intellect, which even
his adversaries acknowledged, and his peculiar manners,
C
*Hahnemann. Ein Biographisches Denkmal. Leipzig 1851. p. 123.
N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 229. Also Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. xxvi.
Hom. World., Vol. xxvi., p. 265.
Friedrich Hahnemann's des Sohnes Widerlegung der Anfalle Hecker's
auf des Organon der rationellen Heilkunde. Dresden.
1811.”
36
STORY OF THE PROVERS
gained for him the esteem and patronage of the public,
but were very far from ensuring the kind regards of his
near and remote colleagues, who ever looked upon the
increase of his practice with an evil eye and upon the
constant diminution of their receipts, which were already
sadly reduced, with a mournful countenance. Both Zschopau
and its environs brought him a large revenue, and the
houses in which he opened an office once or twice a week, and
to which he came tearing down the mountains in an open four
horse wagon, were thronged with patients. But his colleagues,
who differed with him in opinion, were not content with merely
looking at him with an evil eye; they joined their forces to
make a general attack, to which the Royal Sanitary Commission
of Saxony readily lent a helping hand, and presented the accu-
sation to which, properly speaking, no rejoinder was necessary,
since the younger Hahnemann was a graduate of the country
and proprietor of an apothecary establishment; hence no accu-
sation for dispensing his own drugs could rightly be brought
against him. However, the efforts of the stronger prevailed,
Hahnemann was summoned to answer for himself which, on
grounds already stated, he was not willing to do; preferring to
put himself at once beyond the reach of this vexatious and un-
just prosecution, he left wife, child, (a daughter,) and country,
and removed to another part of the world, where he has not
been heard from for many years. After this but little is known
of his movements. He became a wanderer.
An account in the Homeopathic World, evidently taken from
the "Biographical Account" of Albrecht, is as follows:* It is
proved that he went to Holland and afterwards went to England.
There all traces of him were lost. In a letter, dated September
8, 1818, from Helder in Holland to his parents, he says: I now
think it right to give you some account of myself but not a very
long one. I have generally been in good health. In many re-
spects I am changed. I am now more cautious, steady and
composed than when I last saw you. I have encountered many
difficulties, but all have turned out well. I cannot give you
any idea of my position, as it is now in a state of transition to
something better. You will not hear from me again before the
*Hahnemann. Ein Biographisches Denkmal. Leipzig. 1851. Hom.
World. Vol. xiii., p. 381; Vol. xxvi., p. 265.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
37
end of the present year.
Do not write to me until I am more
settled. I possess an ample and sufficient income. My engage-
ments are numerous, as God and honest men are everywhere to
be found. I am in no danger of perishing, as I am unwilling
to do anything to displease them. This letter is written in a
handwriting that displays the utmost wildness; as different
from ordinary writing as the fiery glance and rapid speech of
the clear thinker differs from the rolling eye and exaggerated
language of the insane. Further letters dated from London,
1819, appear to have convinced Hahnemann, from their manner
and matter, that Friedrich was mad. Hahnemann said: “My
poor son is certainly insane.' One sentence is written in one
corner of this letter, a large space is left blank, another sentence
is in the middle and so on. A subsequent letter is written upon
in detached places two or three inches apart, and in very minute
characters. No trace of his after career or death was ever found,
and the dreadful conviction settled over and darkened the mind
of Hahnemann that his unhappy son had died in a madhouse.
>>
This fate is doubly sad when it is remembered that Friedrich
Hahnemann was a genius.* He spoke Latin, Greek, French,
English and Italian, he understood as much of Arabic as could
be required and desired from a highly educated physician. He
was a very fair musician, played the guitar and piano, and had
other acquirements.
The following letter, written to his sister on the first of April,
1819, shows the same eccentricity:†
Dear Amalie: I have just received a letter from my wife,
and read the terrible words, your sister Minna is dead. The
horror which I felt was excessive: nothing ever affected me so
strangely. Sit down, my dear, and tell me all that has happened
to the good creature. How is her child? Take care of it; do it
for the sake of me, your brother. Tell me whether a good artist.
can be found at Leipsic, and what he charges for careful portraits
of our father and mother executed in the style they would wish.
I will send you the necessary sum to pay the artist. Did my
parents receive my letter? Tell my wife that I will send her
something next week. This week I shall not go to town to see
the merchant with whom I am about to transact some business
respecting my wife.
D. B.
*I 'Leben und Wirken.'
"Ameke," p. 159.
+Fischer's Trans. of "Biographisches Denkmal," p. 112.
38
STORY OF THE PROVERS
This letter was also written in irregular, detached portions,
and in very minute characters, and on small paper.
In a letter to his father dated London, May 23, 1819, he says:*
Dear Father: Not Bath, but London, is my present resi-
dence. That I write on Bath paper is merely habit.
You say I should dismiss all paltry fear. But you mistake
prudence for fear. I am as friendly to the former as I am hostile
to the latter. The prudent man neglects the unnecessary, the
timorous man the necessary. In order to inform you that I enjoy
a competency, and in order to learn how everything is going on,
it was not necessary to give my address nor the date. But as
soon as I learned how things had turned out I mentioned town
and date. But I do not consider it necessary to make it gen-
erally known. Thus, for instance, it would be of no advantage
to me if the people of Hamburg knew it, because I had there a
bother with the apothecaries (and the doctors dependent on
them), which came before the public, in the course of which I
openly appealed to the conscience of the authorities The affair
is not yet ended. I do not want to go further in the business. It
is known that I am travelling.
I have given to some one in Hamburg some papers to keep.
For I thought that besides my diploma of M. D., and my pass-
port, I needed nothing more (I found them quite sufficient).
This man will, before the end of this year, send by post what he
has in his possession addressed to you. (You have only to pay
the postage.) When this happens I do not wish you to write an
answer to the Hamburg man, but only let me know of it. Should
he send a letter along with the papers you may send it on to me.
Mother may open the packet, count the number of pieces it con-
tains and tell me how many there are, but don't send any of
them here until I ask for them. I might have saved you this
trouble if I had thought it expedient to commission the man to
address these documents to my wife. Sapienti sat.
She does not know that I write such long letters to you.
She does not even know if I write to you at all, far less what.
Therefore, what you do not consider advisable to tell her about
my correspondence, or about what I send to you, leave it untold.
I have already repeated that I commissioned Amalie (his sister)
to give something to my wife. It would be agreeable to me
*Hom. World, Vol. xxvi., p. 266.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
39
•
were it forgotten. But you may tell her all you think needful,
because I will neither deny nor affirm anything. I shall be, as
it were, dumb. But if she talks of coming after me you can
follow Plautus' advice: Etiam illud quod scies nesciveris.
According to my present mode of viewing things I think it
right to make no, not any, change in the affair. That is to say,
I will neither allow anyone to follow me, nor will I give her any
explanation on this point. If it depends on me I will not say a
syllable about it. My letters to her are extremely short. Before
undertaking anything of the sort I think of talking the matter
over with you and mother. I will only send her so much as will
render it easier for her and the children to live. Nothing for
any other purpose. Six weeks ago I sent her a bill for 8½
pounds sterling. (I thought this would just make fifty thalers,
but they paid her nearly 52 thalers for it.) The next remittance
I send will be for mother. Only after that will I send another
to my wife.
Minna's death made a peculiar, I will not say a bad, impres-
sion on me.
To be able to be serious is now a comfort to me,
and everything of an opposite character is repugnant to me.
I am very glad in more than one respect that the second edi-
tion of your "Organon," and the fifth part of the "Materia
Medica" have come out. I will procure them.
man.
The bookseller Bohte (the h must be before the t) is a busy
In his book catalogue he has already got the first edition
of your "Organon" under the No. 3024. Though he understands
more about commercial affairs, the scientific matters are managed
by a member of the company, who is at the same time the royal
librarian.
* * *
Friedrich again wrote to his father from Truro, on September
12, 1819, saying that he would be at home in October, and ask-
ing that letters should be addressed thus: Mr. F. Hahnemann,
Doctor and Physician, in Truro (in England).
His father answered as follows:
Dear Son: We are all in distress that you have not written
to us for seven months. Your receipted bill, a sealed letter ad-
dressed to you, and your diplomas of doctor, magister and min-
eralogist have come from Hamburg and are lying here. In
September you wrote that you were coming to Germany in
October; in that short time you could not have received an
40
STORY OF THE PROVERS
answer from us. We expected you to arrive; you did not come;
what are we to think? Dispel this uncertainty. We have some
agreeable tidings to give you in writing. Write as soon as pos-
sible to your distressed family, and S. Hahnemann, your father.
Leipsic, April 24, 1820.
This letter is addressed not to Friedrich, but To Mstr. Sam-
uel Hahnemann, M. D., and Physician, at Truro.
This letter bears no sign of having been posted, though sealed
and directed.
Dudgeon says:* In an undated fragment of a letter I find
the following caution given to his correspondent (probably his
father) about writing to him: My address on this letter to be
written as usual, and in German characters (but without naming
this place), closely sealed. Then an outside cover, fastened
with sealing wax, with the following inscription: Mr. E. William
Smith, T. o. Gr. L., No. 70 Compton St.,. Clerkenwell, London.
He evidently was afraid to trust his own family with his ad-
dress. Perhaps he feared they might tell his wife. The paper
on which this is written, and the handwriting and style of the
fragment correspond exactly to the undated letter given later on,
which I imagine to have been the first he wrote from England,
when he was in terror lest the Hamburg authorities should hear
of his whereabouts and get him arrested.
In a letter to his mother, dated May 18, 1819, he says:
I need not assure you that every time I get something to
read from you I feel a peculiar pleasure. But the receipt of your
letter of this 19th of April was for me a still greater pleasure.
The reason lay partly in the great hindrance to our correspond-
ence that has existed hitherto, partly in the refreshment, so long
withheld, of exchanging ideas in the language I inherited from
you. I can well imagine what anxiety you must have experi- .
enced during my father's illness. Those were grave and
impressive days. But on that very account they were the more
important and valuable-the parents of deep feeling and of seri-
ous reflection, the grandparents of a knowledge of God and of
virtue-without suffering, I may say, our existence here would
be valueless, the worst fate [Then follows a blank.]
You ask how long a letter takes to go between us. This
varies very much, because the wind required for a sea passage is
not always the same. I am told that in quite favourable circum-
*Hom. World, Vol. xxvi., p. 348.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
4I
stances the time occupied is from four to five weeks. I am sorry
that you still have to pay postage. I make my letters as cheap
as they can be made. A letter consisting of half a sheet and a
thin envelope costs me one thaler, fourteen good groschen
(Saxon reckoning). For your letters I have to pay something
more But I wish you not to hesitate on account of this postage,
for that is only a temporal matter and does no injury to our
mind. Every one of you write as often and as much as you like.
And do not always wait for letters from me. I will soon send
you some money which you may use for meeting this expense,
and the remainder you may keep for yourself, not give away.
He then continues in this letter to give his impressions of
London life and of England. Further on he says: I do not
think I wrote you that last year I did not hurry away from Ger-
many, but undertook a number of journeys of an interesting
character. Among other places I visited the divine Hartz, with
all its remarkable sights, such as Baumannshohle, Stufenberge,
Rosstrappen, the so-called Magdesprunge, Alexiusbade mines,
stamping mills, smelting, refining, foundry, tin plate, iron and
other works, powder mills, not to forget that most sublime
object, the Brocken.
In a letter to his sister Louisa, of May 23, 1819, he relates
how he was nearly drowned:* I have several times been in
danger of my life. Thus, for instance, I was on board a ship
which was smashed by a much larger ship. The fall of the
mast, the crashing of the two ships, the tearing to pieces of the
cabin (in which I was at the time), the cracking, the crashing of
the other parts of the ship as they broke up, the breaking of the
ropes, the cries of distress, the howling and calls for help, alas!
in vain the moaning and groaning of those who were injured,
all together made a frightful scene. Luckily the lower parts of
the ship kept so well together, that by pumping, the water could
be kept under. A merchant in the anxiety of the moment got
intoxicated. Without a hat and with a knife in his hand (he
was about to take dinner) he jumped onto the large ship that
was passing, and then looked piteously at us. I did not receive
the slightest injury, though everything all around me was
broken and smashed to bits.
He also wrote letters about this time to his other sisters,
* Hom. World, Vol. xxvi., p. 447.
42
STORY OF THE PROVERS
+
Eleonora, Frederika, Charlotte. In a letter to Amalie he says:
I enclose here a bill for six pounds sterling, which Messrs.
Kopler & Co. will cash in due time. You need not say any-
thing about me to them. They will only look to the name of
the drawer, if he is solvent they will pay.
As soon as you have got the money then call in the best
painter, and see that it is a day when neither father nor mother
has had to undergo any vexation or annoyance. Tell the artist
to do his very best because if he does, he may get other jobs to
do for us. You should also see that no disturbance takes place
while the artist is at work. (He had in a previous letter written
about engaging an artist to paint the portraits of his father and
mother). The manner in which this immortalizing shall be car-
ried out must be left completely to the originals of the por-
traits.
·
But if I might be allowed to say a few words on the subject
I would suggest that father's head (and neck) should be painted
quite unadorned, uncurled,* and unpowdered, also without any-
thing not absolutely required; therefore without cap, or neck
cloth, or collar.
The same with mother, as simple as possible. But for her a
piece of white handkerchief would be becoming.
"I would not take upon me to dictate anything. Only this
much, that neither of them should be beautified or flattered.
He should paint them just as they are, not otherwise.
"LONDON, June 25, 1820.
My Dear Parents and Sisters: I can scarcely describe what
has occurred to me during the last nine months, at the end of
the last and the beginning of the ensuing year. When I had
promised to be with you I was far more distant than ever. I
have just arrived here, on my way to Scotland.
In a few weeks I intend to go to Truro, where I hope to find
letters in order to take a passage from Falmouth to the Conti-
nent. I am well, with the exception of a slight melancholy
which must be attributed to my bachelor life. I wish you all
every happiness, and embrace and kiss you most affectionately.
In my next you will hear perhaps more from Edinburgh.
FREDERICK HAHNEMANN.
*Hahnemann was in the habit, as early as 1819, of having his hair arti-
ficially curled.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
43
This letter is also written in the same disordered hand.*
The Biographisches Denkmal and Albrecht's Life of Hahne-
mann give June 25, 1820, the date of the last letter of Hahne-
mann to his father, as the time when all the traces of the wan-
derer were lost. It has been established that he was living in
Dublin in 1823. It is quite probable that he afterwards went to
the United States.
After his letter to his father of June, 1820, he must have made
his way to Dublin. In a letter written by Hahnemann to Dr.
Stapf, dated Coethen, July 19, 1827, he says: A few days.
since I received from England a letter from my son, in which he
promises to come over and see me this year for certain. I am
very well pleased with the thought of seeing him.
Dudgeon says in a note that this letter from England seems
to be the last tidings received from him.
In the Homœopathic Times, London, August 21 to September 4,
1852, may be found some facts relating to him.
Under the title, "Hahnemann in Dublin," Dr. R. Tuthill
Massy wrote to the editor as follows: "A short time since I had
a conversation with Mr. Boyton Kirk, of London; he then in-
formed me that Dr. Hahnemann attended his brother, in Dublin,
for fits, in the year 1823. The great Hahnemann, after prescribing,
said that the child would have two more fits; he further stated
the days and hours, and then said the child would never have
another, which turned out correct to the moment.
The father, Thomas Kirk, R. H. A., the artist, so renowned
in works of sculpture, took Hahnemann's bust in the year 1823,
while the doctor had the spark and fire of manhood. This fact
has been mentioned by more than one author; Lady Morgan has
referred to it, and to Hahnemann's visit, in a number of Bolster's
Magazine, published in Dublin.
It occurred to me that each of the English Homœopathists
would like to see this head and have a copy, I therefore wrote
to Mr. Kirk, of Dublin, and he has offered to do fifty casts, full
size, from the original mould, for 10s. each; twenty-five for 15s.
each; twelve for £1 IS. each; so that if we get fifty subscribers
we can have them very cheap.
The above casts would be in plaster; but Mr. Kirr, of the
†Fischer's Trans. of “Biographisches Denkmal.” p. 112.
*Hom., World, Vol. xxiv., p. 366.
44
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Royal Porcelain Works, Worcester, has offered to get the mould
from Mr. Kirk, of Dublin, and to finish fifty in Parian china, for
100 guineas, which will closely resemble the marble bust of
Hahnemann in the late Sir Robert Peel's collection, and which,
Mr. Kirk tells me, Sir Robert prized beyond all the works,
foreign or national, in his gallery.
Hahnemann wore a pointed beard in 1823, and with his beau-
tiful head and elegant outline this bust has been frequently
taken for that of St. Paul. You may put down my name for one
in the Parian china.
R. TUTHILL MASSY.
Gal
(Signed)
Worcester, August 14, 1852.
The issue for September 4th brought the next two letters, set-
tling the authenticity of the Dr. Hahnemann, who was in Dub-
lin, in 1823:
Your number of Saturday, the 21st inst., contains a letter from
Dr. Massy, of Worcester, in which it is stated that the venerable
reformer, Samuel Hahnemann, practiced Homœopathy in Dublin
in the year 1823, and that his bust at present exists in the studio
of Mr. Kirk, the well known sculptor of that city. The minutest
incidents of Hahnemann's life are too dear to the Homœopathic
public to be allowed to remain long secret; and his numerous
personal friends, admirers and immediate disciples chronicled
each event of his truly important career so accurately that it
seems impossible so noteworthy a circumstance as a visit to the
British Isles should up to the present have escaped the notice of
his biographers. In no record of his life that has fallen into my
hands is there mention of such a journey; on the contrary, all
seem agreed that in 1823 he was enjoying at Coethen compara-
tive repose and professional freedom, after his stormy sojourn
at, and final expulsion from, Leipsic. As regards the bust in
question, allow me to add that I have frequently seen it in the
studio of Mr. Kirk, with whom I formed an acquaintance some
years ago in Rome, which I was happy to renew in settling here
in 1850. Mr. Kirk was then under the impression that the bust
was that of the founder of Homœopathy; but the first glance
suffices to convince anyone acquainted with Samuel Hahnemann's
well known head that it never could have belonged to him,
though a certain family resemblance is unmistakably traceable.
It is, in fact, that of his son Frederick Hahnemann, who practiced
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
45
here at that time, and made no little noise in the Dublin world,
driving a coach and four, and keeping a handsome establishment
in Dawson St. The face is expressive of fiery energy, the eyes
possessing a penetrating vividness, which is wonderfully ren-
dered in the clay; but the head, which is bald in front, though
striking and remarkably fine, does not exhibit the massive
squareness and breadth of forehead of the father, being rounder
and less lofty. The lower part of the face is concealed by a
large beard and mustache. It is evidently the head of no ordi-
nary man, and never fails to attract the attention of those who
visit the studio of my talented countryman. His age might be
guessed at from thirty-five to forty. The bust was executed by
the father of the present Mr. Kirk while Frederick Hahnemann
was in attendance on one of his sons, whom he cured of a dis-
tressing malady and is one of the numerous proofs of the remark-
able facility possessed by that lamented artist of infusing speak-
ing life into the inanimate marble.
As a memento of one to whom fate attaches a melancholy
mystery, independent of the interest connected with all that
relates to the great Hahnemann, this bust would form an ac-
quisition to the study or gallery of the Homoeopathist or
dilletante.
I had already requested Mr. Kirk to furnish me with a copy,
as a pendant to a bust of the father, to which, as I before re-
marked, it bears a family resemblance.
I remain, etc.,
W. B. B. SCRIVEN.
40 Stevens Green, Dublin, Aug. 24, 1852.
Dr. Luther also writes regarding this bust, as follows: I have
just seen last week's Homeopathic Times, and hasten, both for
the sake of the credit of Homoeopathy and as a matter of pious.
duty towards the memory of our great and good master, to cor-
rect the erroneous impression which your correspondent in your
last number seems to have received with regard to the person of
the name of Hahnemann, who was in Dublin in 1823. This
personage was not the "great Hahnemann " himself, but his
only son, Frederick Hahnemann, a man of a certain amount of
talent, but very eccentric in his opinions and conduct.
When shortly after the appearance of the "Organon," Hecker
criticised the new doctrine with great severity in his "Annalen,"
46
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Hahnemann as usual remained silent; but his son Frederick
undertook the defense of Homœopathy (1811). This task he
performed but indifferently. He also occasionally assisted his
father in his investigations of the pathogenetic properties of
various medicines; however, he does not seem to have risen
above mediocrity. His restless disposition and eccentric habits,
as well as domestic circumstance, induced him to leave Germany.
He went to Dublin, not to practice Homoeopathy, but for
the avowed and exclusive purpose of curing epilepsy. In this,
if report can be trusted, he frequently succeeded; but his profes-
sional conduct exceeded even the ordinary limits of oddity and
eccentricity, to make use of the mildest terms. He soon left
Dublin again, and when Hahnemann, for the last time, heard
anything about him he was somewhere in the West Indies.
You may rely upon this account, as I have heard, during my
long sojourn in Dublin, and from the most authentic sources, a
great many particulars which were very far from flattering, and
always embarrassing, as people, like your correspondent, were
apt to confound the two Hahnemanns. Besides this I had, in
April, 1843, a long conversation with Hahnemann himself on
this very subject. I was on the point of starting on a tour
through North America, and intended to return by the West
Indies. Although Hahnemann had great reason to be dissatis-
fied with his son, and seldom spoke of him, it would seem that
his then weak state of health, from which he told me he would
never rally, had softened his paternal heart, and he evinced
great anxiety that I should make extensive inquiries in the
West Indies about his lost son.
Circumstances, however, prevented my returning by that
Possibly Frederick Hahnemann is still alive, and may
be met with by some of our numerous transatlantic friends.
When I asked Hahnemann how I should know him, he said:
He cannot deny his father as to features; he is humpbacked
and eccentric in dress, manner and habits. These brief par-
ticulars about Frederick Hahnemann will, I trust, be sufficient
for all public purposes.
I remain your obedient servant,
CHARLES W. LUTHER.
Dublin, Aug. 28, 1852.
The next article is in the issue for September 18th. Dr.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
47
Massy wrote to Mr. Joseph R. Kirk and received the following
letter: In reply to your favor I beg to say that I have asked my
mother the questions you desired respecting the Hahnemann
who practiced in Dublin in 1824, and she tells me he was hump-
backed and had a very old appearance, looking like a man of
sixty; but my father told her he was not more than forty at the
time.
With respect to the mention made of the bust, in an article
written some twenty years ago, in Bolster's Magazine, supposed
to be by Lady Morgan, she merely mentions the bust as an
instance of fine modelling, but says nothing whatever about him.
There is no doubt that this is the bust of Frederick Hahnemann,
not Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of Homœopathy and
father of the man whose bust I have.
At present I have in my possession a beautiful bronze basso-
relievo head of Samuel Hahnemann, modelled by the celebrated
French sculptor David to make a mould on, which I have done,
and until I saw it I was always under the impression that the
other was the founder of Homœopathy.
(J. R. KIRK.)
The next we hear of any person resembling the erratic Fried-
rich is in America.
In a journal published by Dr. Dio Lewis, in Buffalo, N. Y., in
1851, appears the following article from the pen of Dr. Freder-
ick Humphreys :*
FREDERICK HAHNEMANN-AN INCIDENT OF EARLY HOMŒO-
PATHIC HISTORY.
In the year 1841, when essaying to practice Homoeopathy in
the Northern part of Tompkins County, N. Y., with the few
meagre helps then to be obtained in our language, and suppos-
ing myself a pioneer in this part of the country, what was my
surprise to find myself occupying ground already consecrated
by one of the immediate disciples of Hahnemann.
I then learned from numerous sources that in 1828 an individ-
ual of most singular appearance and manner had landed from a
boat from the East, and for a season had made his sojourn in the
vicinity of Ludlowville, and had extensively practiced Homo-
opathy in the country around.
He was a German and his speech was marked with strong
*The Homœopathist, Buffalo, July, 1851 (Vol. i, No. 3).
48
STORY OF THE PROVERS
German accent, though generally correct. His height was
about five feet ten inches, very round shoulders and a very
prominent chest, giving him a decidedly hunchback appearance.
His age was about forty and his complexion very dark, almost
inclined to copper color. He was very quick and vivacious in
his movements and conversation, and exceedingly irritable and
passionate in his temperament and disposition. His dress was
peculiar, exhibiting but little regard for the fashions of the day
- his face unshaved, his beard long, and generally attired in an
old morning gown, gave him anything but an inviting exterior.
He represented himself as the son of Hahnemann. That his
father was then at the head of the Homœopathic College of
Germany, in Leipsic, and was in the enjoyment of an immense
and lucrative practice. That he had left the old world from
hatred to her laws and institutions and had determined to live
and die in the land of liberty, the country of his adoption.
His success in the application of medicines, which were
always given in the form of a very diminutive sweet powder,
was such as to excite the wonder and astonishment of all with
whom he came in contact, while his minute and to them childish
and needless directions, as to the dress, diet, and habits of his
patients, only excited their ridicule and contempt. His
irritable temperament brought him into frequent difficulties with
the people, who not infrequently took delight in making him
the subject of their small jokes and petty annoyances.
The details of a single case which he treated and which fin-
ished his labors in that locality will serve to give as striking
a picture of the man as anything we can offer.
It was the cure of a little girl of nine years of age who had
been treated by the physicians for some two years for dropsy.
As their skill had been exercised upon her to no purpose, the
German was called in.
Upon an examination of her case he decided that this dropsy
was only symptomatic, and that the real affection was a disease
of the heart; and that the former would disappear upon the
cure of the latter. The application of his first powder entirely
relieved her of a pain in her left side which had existed from
before the appearance of the dropsy, and which all the medicines
she had taken utterly failed to reach.
His directions were very particular in reference to her diet,
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
49
habits, etc. She was to have her own plate, spoon and knife,
and on no account was she to use any other. She was not to
sit or sleep with an aged person. Her diet was rigidly pre-
scribed in quantity and quality; she was to smell of no flow-
ers, or perfumes, and neither camphor nor acids were to be
used about her, and if anyone smoking or chewing tobacco came
into the room he was instantly to be expelled.
The treatment for a time was very successful. The child
gained in strength and flesh and was quite comfortable, yet the
anasarca did not disappear. The child's mother was very anx-
ious to see the "bloat go down," and to her continued
entreaties he only answered "it will do no good." Finally he
yielded to her solicitations, all the while protesting that no
benefit would result. He gave a powder, and the old lady
declares that while she yet looked the swollen oedematous skin
became corrugated and in a little time every vestige of it had
disappeared. At the next visit the child was worse. He began
earnestly to question the mother in a passionate manner if the
minute details of all his directions had been severally complied
with. The old lady, irritated by his manner beyond endurance,
pettishly replied that she thought it was high time that some-
thing more was done besides attending to his whims. At the
mention of this last word the Doctor broke into a passion of
ungovernable rage. His fury knew no bounds. "Whim,
whim!" he yelled; "hah! hah! you call my doctrine whim! hah!
hah! whim! whim! I will no doctor her more, hah! hah! She will
go to the fools and asses, hah! hah! She will die! whim! hah!
hah!" yelled he as he stalked back and forth with the language
and manner of a lunatic. When excited, as was often the case,
he had a passion for throwing in this word hah! hah! between
his sentences, and with such violence as to resemble more the
barking of a small dog than the voice of a human being.
Finally unable longer to contain himself he seized his hat
and rushed from the house into darkness and storm, repeating
his hah, hah. and whim, whim, until the sound was lost in
the distance; he made his way to a neighbouring house where
he hired a person to convey him to the village, some miles dis-
tant, that night amid the rain and darkness.
-
In the morning a vexatious suit was commenced against him
for the recovery of the money which he had received for attend-
ance upon the child.
50
STORY OF THE PROVERS
A leather-headed justice readily gave judgment against him
for the amount; when finding there was likely to be a recur-
rence of the same scene he hastily packed up and placed his
baggage on board a boat on the lake and was never there heard
of more.
The old lady at whose house the above scene occurred cannot
forget those fiendish sounds of hah! hah! whim! whim! as they died
away in the tempest and storm, nor can she entirely dissuade
herself to this day but that she had a visit from the old Scratch
himself.
It is upon record that sometime in 1832-3, when the cholera
was making frightful ravages in the entire Northwest, especially
at St. Louis, Dubuque, and Galena, a strange individual came out.
from the lead mines at the latter place. He was represented as a
hunchback, very dark complexion, strong German accent, wore
his beard unshaved and was attired in a long flowing dressing
gown or robe.
He cured several hundred of the people during
the epidemic, giving them from a small vial, which had neither
taste nor smell, and which seemed to act like magic. He re-
ceived nothing for his services; but enjoined it upon all who
were restored to become nurses and attendants upon the sick, a
requisition by no means unnecessary at that period of universal
panic and fright.
Whether he died during the continuance of the cholera or
whether he returned to his former seclusion is to me unknown.
The same individual probably, 'is described as having practiced
Homœopathy in the interim between the two dates mentioned
above,' in some one of the western counties of Pennsylvania.
There was naturally a strong disposition to learn more of this
strange individual, nor was I in any degree satisfied in my in-
quiries until many months ago I mentioned the circumstance in
conversation with Dr. Hering. He assured me, after a careful
comparison of the various circumstances, that in all probability
this was no other than Frederick Hahnemann, the long-lost son
of our venerable founder.
Hahnemann had a son, to whom he alludes in one of his pub-
lished letters in the most touching manner.
In many respects Hahnemann resembled Washington. Both
were exact and particular, even punctilious, with regard to the
lesser matters of life. In writing, keeping records and accounts,
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
5I
correspondence, untiring industry and scrupulous regard to all
the minutiae of daily dress and decorum both were models. The
son of Hahnemann was the opposite of his father. He affected
to believe that society had degenerated and become entirely fic-
titious, and that considerations of health and comfort demanded
our return to a condition of primitive simplicity. Hence, despis-
ing the customs and usages of surrounding society, attired in his
morning gown and cap, with unshaved face, he sought to give a
practical exhibition of the doctrine he maintained.
Between the father and son irreconcilable differences sprung
up, and it is recorded of the former, with reference to the latter,
that he never spoke of him.
Friedrich Hahnemann was married in Leipsic, but his mar-
riage, like every other event of his life, was unhappy, and in a
moment probably of gloomy resolution he left his family and
embarked on board a ship for this country, and by them was
never heard of again.
F. HUMPHREYS.
It is possible that after his residence in Dublin Friedrich did
take ship and come to the new world, where he must have known
that the doctrines of Homœopathy even then were beginning to
gain a footing. There is no record in the German histories of
Hahnemann after 1820. Albrecht says all traces were then lost.
But, according to the letter of 1827, he was then in England, but
did not make the promised visit to his father.
In a letter written by an English clergyman, and dated May
9th, 1850, he speaks of visiting Madame Liebe (Hahnemann's
daughter), he says:* I learned from her that there is also living
in Dresden a grand-daughter of Hahnemann, the only child
of his only son, who has been dead many years. She is, also, a
widow, with six children and her mother, and is in great
poverty.
The Allgemeine hom Zeitung, Vol. ivi., p. 72, contains the fol-
lowing note: Friedrich Hahnemann's widow died in Leipsic
on March 22, 1858, of tuberculosis.
WRITINGS.
Refutation of Hecker's Attack upon the Organon of Homoeopathic
Healing of S. Hahnemann. Dresden. Arnold. 1811.
De medicamentorum confectione et exhibitione per pharmacopoias.
Jenæ. Croker. 1818.
* London Hom. Times, Vol. i.,
p. 665.
52
STORY OF THE PROVERS
ERNST HARNISCH.
No data obtainable.
CARL GEORGE CHRISTIAN HARTLAUB.
Hartmann says: Of the life of Hartlaub, Sr.,* though I was
more intimate with him than with Caspari, I can say still less :
his brother is still living, a true friend and advocate of Homo-
opathy, who can easily supply the deficiency of my narrative,
He was Caspari's most intimate friend, and I have learned from
his own lips that their conversation turned chiefly upon Homœ-
opathy and the manner of advancing its interests. My opinion
cannot be taken as decisive, since I was little acquainted with
Caspari, yet it seemed to me that Hartlaub was a still more capa-
ble man than Caspari, at least his works bear a more decided
impress of originality, and manifest more of that power of
production, which seems wanting, or at least doubtful, in the
works of Caspari.
In 1829 Hartlaub left Leipsic in consequence of an invita-
tion from Counsellor Muhlenbein to take up his residence at
Brunswick and assist the Counsellor in his extensive practice,
to which he could no longer attend on account of the infirmities
of advancing years. I cannot think that he was very happy in
his new residence, at least the contrary was currently reported,
and one might easily suppose that such would have been the
case from Muhlenbein's imperious temper, which was often
manifested with great rudeness. He died, if I mistake not, of a
nervous fever-many years before Muhlenbein-much too soon
for science, which deeply deplored its loss.
Rapou says: Hartlaub was the most prolific writer of our
school. His works, less rich in theoretic dissertations than
those of Caspari, embrace more regarding practical medicine.
He applied himself at first in arranging our pathogeneses in
a practical form, and formed a judicious summary and methodi-
cal classification of the phenomena. This manner of labor in
which Weber, Ruckert, Bonninghausen and Jahr later won
great renown, was a source of great honor to this practitioner of
*N. W. Jour. Hom. Vol., iv. p 235. Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. xxxix, p 291.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
53
Leipsic. Notwithstanding his feeble constitution, his failing
health and his short existence (he died young), he gave to our
literature many extended works, the labor on which would seem
to have required a long life or the concurrence of a society of
savants.
About 1830 Hartlaub left Leipsic to settle at Dresden near his
ancient colleague, Dr. Trinks, and with him commenced to edit
a clinical journal. This journal appeared in 1830 under the
title: "Annals of the Homœopathic Clinic." His aim was to
contribute to perfecting our method by publishing constantly
observations in detail on the treatment of many varieties of dis-
ease; it was to complete, to verify, the pathogenesis by means
of the clinic, and to fix the new medicine on a firmer and surer
basis. These Annals were published till 1834, at which time
Hartlaub was called to attend the Duke of Brunswick. They
were continued by the Silesian Homœopathic Society under the
title: "Praktische Beitrage," till the year 1840, covering a
period of ten years and offering to practitioners a valuable col-
lection of results from clinical lessons.
Hartlaub died at Brunswick. Rapou says that Carl Preu, of
Nuremberg, who was the first to prove the effects of the mineral
waters on the healthy body, about 1826 interested Hartlaub also
in these experiments.
WRITINGS
Nonnulla de venaesectionis in organismum universum vi, et in curan da
niminatim inflammatione usu. Lipsiae. Voss. 1824.
Short Treatise on the Homoeopathic Method of Cure. Prepared for the
Laity. Leipsic. Focke. 1829.
The Education of Children. A Word to Parents and Teachers. Leipsic.
Woeller. 1829.
The Same. Second edition, with title: The Homoeopathic Physician for
Children. Leipsic. Volckmar. 1833.
The Art of Preserving Health and of Prolonging the Life. Leipsic. Woller.
1830. Second edition, 1833.
Tabular Lists for Practical Medicine according to the Principles of Homœ-
opathy. Large folio. Leipsic. Leo. 1829.
HARTLAUB, AND TRINKS (C. F. G.)
Annals of the Homoeopathic Clinic. 1st year. 1830. 2 nos. Leipsic.
Fr. Fleischer.
The Same. 2d year, 1831-2 uos. 3d year, 1832-4 nos. 4th year, 1833-
4 nos.
54
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Pure Materia Medica. 3 vols. Leipsic. Brockhaus. 1828-31.
Systematic Effects of the Pure Effects of Medicine for the Practical Use of
Homœopathic Physicians. Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1825-28. 6 vols.
Systematic Presentation of the Antipsoric Remedies in their Pure Effects.
3 vols. Also under the title: Systematic Presentation of the Pure
Effects of Medicines, for the practical use of Homœopathic Physi-
cians. Dresden. Arnold. 1829-30. 7-9 vols.
Principles of the New Healing Method Agreeing with Nature, called
Homœopathy. Leipsic Kuenzel.
1834.
Catechism of Homœopathy. Leipsic. Baumgartner. 1824. 3d edition,
1829. 4th edition, 1834.
FRANZ HARTMANN.*
Of this distinguished man Rummel says: We follow the good
custom of setting up a small written memorial in this journal
for the champions of Homoeopathy, although this harmless
tribute paid to the dead has not escaped derision. Derision as
well as recognition and love has been richly meted out to our
lately departed Hartmann; such derision was not only shown
him by his enemies, but also from the camp of his allies, from
whom it hurts most. His life was a series of cares and suffer-
ings yet he knew how to win many joys and a beautiful family
happiness, and to gain many faithful friends through persever-
ing industry and his native cheerfulness.
He was born in Delitsch on the 18th of May, 1796, where his
father was school teacher. In the year 1810 we find him as a
weakly boy of fourteen at the lyceum in Chemnitz, preparing
for the study of theology, and instructing the children of poor
weavers so as to satisfy his few wants.
Thus, young as he was, he already found distress; but also
formed the determination to work himself up by his own ex-
ertions. Soon he became convinced of his unfitness for the career
he had chosen and the wish of becoming a physician increased
in him, because his former fellow student, Hornburg, in his
vacation was already making successful attempts at curing. In
Leipsic, whither he went as student in his 18th year, he became
·
* By Rummel, Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. xlvii., pp. 41-49. See also, N.
Am. Jour.Hom., Vol. iii., p. 566 Phila. Jour. Hom., Vol. ii., p. 640 B. Jour.
Hom., Vol. xii., p. 159. Prager Monatschrift, Vol. viii., p. 110.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
55
the room-mate of Hornburg, who had exchanged theology, his
first choice, for medicine and who was a great admirer of
Hahnemann.
This genial man and born physician had this among his weak-
nesses, that he neglected the study of the Old School medicine
and in his conversations treated opponents of Homœopathy,
among whom were also his future examiners, in a brusque and
challenging manner, which afterwards brought him such bitter
fruit.
For Hartmann, however, who modestly and unassumingly
went his way, and who had soon learned that some of the
courses of lectures were indispensable even if it were only on ac-
count of the examinations, this nearer acquaintance with Horn-
burg was advantageous, as he appropriated to himself a good
deal, from his thorough knowledge of medicine and through him
became acquainted with Hahnemann. This ardent spirit, the
founder of Homœopathy, soon exercised his full power of at-
traction over Hartmann, who entered into the Provers' Union
founded by him and also frequently visited his family circle.
Here the full aura of enthusiasm for the new doctrine reigned,
and this strengthened the disciples to work and also to bear
the contempt and mockery which the other students meted out
to them unsparingly. With all this Hartmann preserved a cer-
tain unprejudiced soberness which caused him to continue also
his other studies, but which soon caused a strained relation be-
tween him and the more enthusiastic adherents of Hahnemann.
After the lapse of 2½ years, on the 29th of September, 1817,
he departed for Berlin with little money, but with much trust in
God, intending to further prosecute there his medical studies;
but he returned to Leipsic at the commencement of the long
vacation because he could there pursue his Homoeopathic studies
more zealously than in Berlin.
On the 21st of March, 1819, he received his diploma in Jena;
this step seems not to have been well considered; he thought he
would thus hasten his progress in his career, but in reality it
delayed him and involved him in many procrastinations. The
arrival of the Prince of Schwartzenberg who intrusted himself
to the treatment of Hahnemann had caused a great excitement
in Leipsic; it had encouraged the friends of Homœopathy, but
it only still more embittered the enemies, and their wrath
broke out into open persecution after the death of the prince.
56
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Hahnemann finally withdrew from the chicanery of the
sanitary police by emigrating to Coethen, but only the more were
these then concentrated on his adherents. In the midst of
this tumult and these hostile conflicts Hartmann again
appeared in Leipsic. Our young doctor had reported to the
Dean, the Royal Councilor Rosenmuller, for the Colloquium
(examination) incumbent on every one who received his diploma
in another university, but at his death had neglected to repeat
his report, and in the meanwhile he treated patients, although
not legally entitled to so.
But Doctor Kohlrush scented out the Homoeopathic powders
with one of his patients and hastened to hand them over with a
complaint into the hands of the Grand Kophtha, of Leipsic, the
medical counsellor, Dr. Clarus.
This ex-officio persecutor of Homœopathy who hated it with
all his heart received this matter with great indignation, and the
fear that they would treat the Homœopath in no lenient manner
at his Colloquium was certainly not unfounded.
Hartmann therefore left Leipsic on Jan. 1st, 1821, in order to
go through the medical course in Berlin, but came too late for
that year as he did not know that application had to be handed
in in November, which he had neglected to do.
This put him out of humour, the more as he had refused the
very attractive offer of Stapf: viz., to accompany him free of
expense on a scientific journey, this offer he had refused merely
that he might not delay his official examination. Stapf was
traveling at the time at the expense of the Prussian Minister of
War, to the Rhine, in order to observe the contagious ophthalmia
in the army and if possible to cure it Homœopathically.
Very much discouraged, Hartmann returned to his native
town of Delitzsch, where six days after the sad duty devolved on
him of attending his father, and six weeks later his mother, to
their eternal rest. Painfully as these sad events touched, ag-
gravating his position which even before was not bright, he
nevertheless felt that the necessity of looking out for himself
acted usefully in a stimulating manner on his mind, which, by
his many unsuccessful attempts to attain his goal, had at this
time become depressed.
Since the proposition of Stapf to settle down in one of the
smaller States as a physician was hemmed with difficulties,
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
57
Hartmann reported in Dresden for a Colloquium. He thankfully
acknowledges the readiness to hasten the matter which was
shown by the Royal councillors, Dr. Leonardi and Dr. Kreysig.
The former he had pleased and won for himself by his well-
written thesis, so that the fear of being discovered and perse-
cuted as a Homœopath proved vain, and after a successful ex-
amination he could settle the same year (1821) in Zschopau as a
practicing physician.
Although he covered up his medical treatment as much as
possible in order to avoid troubles which then even more than
now were inseparable from the reputation of being a Homœo-
path, nevertheless the variation of his method from that
generally prevailing was soon noticed, the more as he succeeded
in making some brilliant cures. To this was added the fact that
the son of Hahnemann had a short time before dazzled the
people of the neighboring town of Wolkenstein by his won-
derful cures, and had caused great sensation and had quite a
run of patients, so that Homœopathy was not unknown in the
vicinity.
From here he met at an appointed meeting in Freiburg, Trinks
and Wolff, whose attention had been called to the new doctrine
in Dresden. These neophytes eagerly interrogated their young
teacher, who himself was in many respects as yet inexperienced
as to remedies for certain definite forms of disease. The vivid
questions and explanations on this occasion were the first impulse
with Hartmann toward the therapy afterwards written by him,
and proved therefore of great influence upon him.
Another very important event for the advancement of Homœo-
pathy, was the appearance of the Archiv fur die homoopathische
Heilkunst, founded by Stapf, Gross and M. Muller in 1822, and
so successfully edited by Stapf. This was of particular influence
on Hartmann, because it led him to become a writer, by which
he became later on so universally known. Stapf had an especial
ability in arousing his acquaintances to production, and Hart-
mann yielded to this influence, and his requests overcame his
native shyness and he communicated his cures to the Archiv,
beginning in 1823.
Praxis frequens sed non aures was the motto at Zschopau.
In order to perhaps gain the latter, Hartmann in November,
1826, removed to Leipsic. As is well known, it is more difficult
58
STORY OF THE PROVERS
to become known and sought after in a large city, and this is
especially the case in Leipsic, where, owing to the University,
there is a strong annual growth of young physicians, and the
way to a good career is generally through serving as an assistant
to a renowned physician. The pressure of patients was not of
course very great in the beginning, cares were not small and
Hartmann had sufficient leisure to satisfy his inclinations for
writing. That which might have paid him for moving, the
closer intercourse with friendly and sympathetic physicians, was
not found in a very great degree. There was even then no lack
of Homœopathic physicians in Leipsic, partly the immediate
disciples of Hahnemann, partly new converts from the Old
School, and some of these came together, especially at the insti-
gation of Haubold, in order to hold scientific discourses, while
others isolated themselves. These meetings were the first be-
ginnings of the Leipsic Local Union, from which the Free Union,
which still exists, developed.
Despite this union, however, there was no lack in Leipsic of
petty quarrels and of tell-tales. Wherefore? I know not, and if
I knew it might be better to cover the past with the mantle of
charity. It seemed as if too much regard was paid not to others,
but by each one to himself; it seemed as if one day the inter-
course was too familiar, and as if on the next day every one
loved too well to diplomatically dissect any "on dit" which was
reported. I had much intercourse at that time with the Homœo-
paths of Leipsic, and found their mutual relations by no means
amiable. It was the period of storm and trouble for the younger
Homœopathy, and in Leipsic was its focus. Then there were
discussions between Hahnemann and the Homeopaths of Leip-
sic, which were not unreasonably explained as being caused by
the secret accusation of some one individual or another. This
perverse state caused suspicion and distrust instead of a close
union, and this affected one and another more or less disagree-
ably: but it touched Hartmann most severely because he was
not able to rise above it, but shut up his annoyance within him-
self.
I made his acquaintance at this time, and this became a real
friendship which lasted till his death. I found in him an ami-
able man, a thoughtful, industrious physician, a cheerful compan-
ion, but one who easily was put out of humor by any rumor re-
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
59
peated to him, or by arrogant behavior, and who would even be
suspicious in case his friends wished to help him over such a
trouble and conceal it from him (see elsewhere in the Zeitung).
His irritability was not indeed sufficiently regarded by others,
when booksellers who were his friends nevertheless published
pamphlets containing personal attacks on him, and still less did
fate spare him.
The preparations for the joyous jubilee of Hahnemann brought
the Homœopaths nearer together. The celebration was the
cause of the establishment of the Central Union and roused the
thought of establishing the Homoeopathic Hospital which
Hahnemann so eagerly desired and which his friends also ap-
proved of, but which they did not desire to see hurried too
much. But then the zeal of Schweickert spoiled everything; he
urged a speedy commencement, and when by the restless efforts
of the friends of the reformed therapeutics the hospital at last
was near to its inauguration, he on whom they had reckoned to
fill the position of chief physician withdrew, and M. Muller and
Hartmann were obliged to take upon themselves the difficult
positions of chief physician and of assistant. They were
persona ingrate with Hahnemann, and he did not hesitate to
proclaim this openly and so to make more difficult this doubtful
undertaking, aye, to undermine it medically.
Hahnemann did not rest until Schweickert entered upon the
office, which had hitherto been an unsalaried one, with a salary of
400 thalers, whereby the fund, originally small, was consumed
all the more quickly. But this arrangement did not last. A
few years later Schweickert suddenly left the hospital to its fate
without having raised it to the flourishing state expected. Now
followed the sad mistake of entrusting the position to a swindler
who, when he was unmasked, could only escape a shameful dis-
missal by a prompt resignation.
Hartmann was now urgently requested to accept the vacant
position of chief physician; and he did so after some delay, but
laid it down again after two years. He was followed by Noack,
after whose departure Hartmann again filled the position, and
when the hospital, owing to its pecuniary difficulties, was
changed into a polyclinic, he still, until his death, retained its
direction as chief physician with the assistance at first of Dr.
Cl. Muller only, later with the further assistance of Dr. V.
Meyer.
60
STORY OF THE PROVERS
I could not entirely omit this disagreeable story of the hospi-
tal because it is too closely connected with the life of our
friend, and because from this very source most of his vexations
arose. The direction of such an institution, difficult in itself,
and which was rendered more difficult by the as yet imperfect
development of Homoeopathy, and the high demands made on
the institution, the little forbearance shown to the persons co-
operating in it, and the other circumstances mentioned above,
would have been sufficient to break down a stronger vitality.
Hartmann knew not how to oppose a bold front to rude arrogance,
but withdrew annoyed into himself, and felt the wounds more
deeply than they deserved. Would he not have been able to
have avoided much vexation if he had definitely and forever re-
fused to have anything to do with the hospital? He might, but
the circumstances were such that he could not do this without
making its continuance impossible, and without doing violence
to the wishes of his friends and the cause of Homoeopathy.
There was simply no one willing to be chief physician, and yet
no one was willing to allow another to be so. Hartmann, be-
sides, was less fitted for the public office of a clinical teacher
than for the activity of a practicing physician and the great work
of an author.
Let us then pass over to this branch of his activity which
brought him many laurels, but was also not without its wound-
ing thorns.
After his clinical reports in the Archiv, the first independent
work was an article on Nux vomica, and when this found ap-
plause he worked out similar articles on Chamomilla and Bella-
donna for the Archiv and on Pusatilla and Rhus tox. for the
homoopathische Zeitung.
Another little treatise on the use of Aconite, Bryonia and Mer-
curius in diseases (1835) is of a similar nature. Dieting Directions
to Everybody, and Diet for the Sick were printed in 1830. He also
edited nine editions of Caspari's Family and Travelling Physician,
and revised and augmented the work. He did the same with
Caspari's Pocket Companion for the Newly Married, and a Homo-
opathic Dispensary for the same; he also augmented this and
edited it in the Latin tongue. His largest work, Therapeutics
of Acute Diseases, first published in 1831, passed through three
editions. In this he endeavored to facilitate the practice of
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
61
Homœopathy for beginners, and to make it more accessible to
physicians of the old school by adjoining to the collective names
of pathology the therapeutic experiences and recommendations
of the suitable remedies.
This form displeased Hahnemann, as he thought it was a con-
cession to the old school. Nevertheless, this book has found a
very wide dissemination and has most contributed to make
known the name of Hartmann. With the same intention and in
a similar manner, while already on his sick bed, he finished his
work on children's diseases. Several of these writings, and
especially the latter two, have been translated into French and
English. How much of the annual publications of the hospital
is due to him I cannot say. In the Journal for Materia Medica,
published conjointly by Hartmann and Noack, he only elaborated
China in his well-known manner, with especial regard to prac-
tice.
In the year 1832, I received a proposal from the publisher,
Baumgartner, through a mutual acquaintance, to edit a Homo-
opathic Gazette. Despite the many opposing difficulties, I ac-
cepted the proposal, subject to the condition that suitable
co-editors should be found. As is well known, these were
found in the late lamented Drs. Gross and Hartmann. Since
none of us, except, perhaps, Gross, nor he when closely viewed,
favored extreme views, the Zeitung had its prescribed course
which it had to keep, and which it will also maintain in the
future. Although the views of the editors were not the same
in all particulars, nevertheless in the many years since the
existence of the Zeitung no discordance has arisen, and differ-
ences of views were always quickly reconciled. Hartmann, at
first, had charge of the critical department and attended to the
reviews of various journals; but later he was glad to assign the
post to others, and contented himself with furnishing shorter
notices, practical miscellanies, reports, especially those of the
"Central Union," of which he was a diligent attendant, with
arranging the matter for the press, and with the internal order-
ing of the Zeitung.
Besides the articles on Pulsatilla and Rhus which have been
already mentioned, we would especially mention among his
more lengthy contributions: "Concerning Hahnemann's Life,"
"Concerning the Sufficiency of Homœopathy," "Events," and
62
STORY OF THE PROVERS
the necrologies of his friends, M. Muller and Wahle, and
"Review of the Past Year of this Gazette."
I will not leave unmentioned the fact that he wrote a small
neat hand, and that his manuscripts were written very clearly,
without many corrections, at once ready for the printer; his
style was correct, though sometimes somewhat rambling.
Outside of his occupation as clinical director of the Homo-
opathic Hospital and his above-mentioned literary work, he
attended to his extensive private practice with untiring energy.
Cheerful, even if not free from care, he lived in his family circle,
which was devoted to him, often visited and requested for
information by many strange physicians, who visited Leipsic as
a cosmopolitan city and as the cradle of Homoeopathy. His
more intimate acquaintances celebrated on the 29th of March,
1844, a jubilee in memory of the twenty-fifth year of his
doctorate. During the year 1836 he filled the honorary position
of president of the Central Union. The "Societe Gallicane,
the "Homœopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania." the
"Academia Omiopatica di Palermo," the "Irish Homoeopathic
Society," and the "Society of Physiological Materia Medica,"
elected him a member.
"}
Gradually complaints of the liver, the chest and the heart
showed themselves, and finally he was afflicted with a painful
degeneration of the legs, resembling elephantiasis, which for
years confined him to his room, and to his chair, without quite
interrupting his activity until this was finally ended by death,
which released him from his sufferings at 9 A. M. on the 10th of
October, 1853.
In one of the necrologies written by him he expressed the
wish that his biographer might be able to say of him as he did
of the departed: "Thou hast faithfully accomplished thy life-
work," and I am able to say this with a full heart and surely
with the concurrence of all who intimately knew him and loved
him.
RUMMEL.
We are greatly indebted to Hartmann for the knowledge we
now possess of the first provings by the little family of provers.
He commenced in the Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung for
February 25th, 1850, a series of articles, entitled: "My Experi-
ences and Observations About Homœopathy." These articles ran
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
63
through six numbers of Vol. 38, and two numbers of Vol. 39 of
this journal."
Interesting data concerning Hahnemann's life may be found
in Hartmann's "Aus Hahnemann's Leben," in the Zeitung, Vol.
xxvi.
*
Hartmann not only gives us a very good idea of the home life
of the great master, but of the personality of the favorite
students and provers. He says:† Our Old Provers' Union con-
sisted of Stapf, Gross, Hornburg. Franz, Wislicenus, Teuthorn,
Herrmann, Ruckert, Langhammer and myself.
Speaking of the persecutions to which the students were
subjected, he says: My career was interrupted in a similar
manner. I had long before announced myself to the then Dean
of the Medical Faculty, Counsellor Rosenmuller, Professor of
Anatomy, as foreign candidate for a higher degree. To my
great misfortune this celebrated man soon died. I did not sup-
pose a second announcement to be necessary, as I thought that
the duties of the Dean were all laid down and exactly per-
formed, and that connected to them was an accurate report of
all events pertaining to the Medical Faculty. Although it was
clearly my interest to inquire whether my wish had been made
known to the new Dean, yet I did not fully realize the impor-
tance of having this obstacle removed, as I found myself engaged
in a practice by no means unprofitable, and with youthful pre-
sumption and carelessness did not even suppose that an obstacle
could be laid in my way.
But with all the caution which I exercised in my practice,
the then second surgeon at Jacob's Hospital, Dr. Kohlrusch (a man
who occupied the place merely on account of his skill as an opera-
tor, but devoid of any further scientific education), discovered that
I attended one of his patients, and lost no time in forwarding to
the President of the faculty a packet of my powders and to
accuse me before this court, so bitterly opposed to all Homo-
opathists. The latter did not allow the affair to rest a long time;
I was summoned before Clarus, overwhelmed with reproaches
*Translations in N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 158. Med. Counselor,
Vol. xi., p. 196, etc. Also Kleinert's Geschichte der Homoopathie, p. 96.
†Kleinert, p. 97. Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. xxxviii., p. 308. N. W.
Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 184. Med. Counselor, Vol. xi., p. 238. Brit. Jour.
Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 453.
64
STORY OF THE PROVERS
and threatened with the severest punishment if I dared to
practice again before the Counsellor ordered my examination. I
confess I found myself in an unpleasant position; I should have
been glad if my examination had been held the next day, for I
had studied diligently and felt confident of my readiness; how-
ever, I must wait until this gentleman was pleased to call for
me, and in the meantime I could earn nothing. My situation
was soon decided by the Secretary of the Faculty, who was
friendly to me; he dissuaded me from being examined at Leipsic,
as I should fail in spite of all my knowledge and then my hope
of being examined at Dresden would be frustrated.
The prospect was not very flattering; on the one hand, my
youthful presumption urged me to brave the danger; on the
other, my better judgment assured me that I, a single person,
could by no means withstand the malicious power arrayed
against me, that I should exert my strength to no purpose and
that a certain overthrow awaited me. Affairs being in such a
condition, no other resource seemed left to me than to seek
another University.
On the first of January, 1821, I left Leipsic in order to enter
upon my course in Berlin, and to become a citizen of Prussia. I
supposed the law of 1817-1818 still in force, according to which
candidates could present their applications to the ministry by
the end of April. I, therefore, was in no particular haste to do
this, but studied diligently in order to pass my examination
with eclat. Early in January I was very much surprised one morn-
ing by the arrival of Dr. Stapf, from Naumburg, who came for
the same purpose, having been commissioned by the Prussian
Minister of War to examine the so-called Egyptian ophthalmia
prevailing among the Prussian troops upon the Rhine, and see
what could be done with Homœopathic remedies to check its
progress. Thus commissioned he came to Berlin to receive
further instructions. He improved this opportunity to find me
and to propose that I should accompany him, which proposition
I would have gladly accepted, as it would have been without
expense, had it not been that it would have disarranged my
plans in coming to Berlin, for a whole year. It was, therefore,
necessary to entirely refuse the friendly offer, however painful it
might be, and my refusal was quite as painful to Stapf, since he
had no assistance but that of a novice in Homœopathy, a Rus-
sian not yet proficient, Peterson, I think, was his name.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
65
The invitation had turned my head a little and I went
about, half dreaming, till a few days later, after mature reflec-
tion and examination, I fully resolved to accept it, and I was the
more induced to this resolution from having learned in the
meantime that the application for permission to make a State
examination could only be handed in early in November of each
year. Stapf had already departed, so this, my resolution, came
too late, and I found myself deceived in my other expectations;
yet to leave nothing untried, I presented my application in the
latter part of January, in reply to which I received, early in
February, a refusal for that year. Immediately upon its recep-
tion I packed up and returned to my parents at Delitsch, only
to bury my father six days, and my mother six weeks, after my
arrival at home; an afflictive event in every view of the case
since I found myself thus suddenly thrust out upon the world
entirely alone, and was, moreover, thrown back quite a half year
by the necessary arrangement of the little estate left by my par-
ents. Yet I could not but rejoice that I had been led to refuse
the journey with Stapf, and consider it was the hand of Provi-
dence which thus gave to me alone, of three living brothers,
the privilege of being with my excellent parents in their last
hours and of closing their eyes. It is unfortunate when an ob-
stacle of any kind is allowed to hinder the studies of a young
man; if some excitement from another direction does not remove
the obstacle he is but too apt to sink into a gloomy far niente,
which readily degenerates into idleness, an error from which I
should not have been kept had I not found myself irresistibly
urged on by the solemn warning: Labor, if thou wouldst insure
thy future success.
I had a few patients to treat, and being a single man they
brought me in a sufficient income; but my position in Prussia
was then too precarious, since I had no right to practice, and it
was only through the kindness and indulgence of the circuit
physician of that place that no notice was taken of me. After
I had settled the most pressing affairs, I repaired to Stapf, at
Naumburg, to advise with him relative to my further course.
Many places were brought to my notice and refused again, as
various hindrances offered which could not be removed. After
a long and fruitless search, Stapf found a market town near to
Neustadt on the Oder (I forget the name), the Justice of which
2
·
66
STORY OF THE PROVERS
me.
was very friendly to him and to whom he earnestly recommended
From the Justice I learned that the Medical Examining
Board of this little place did not look with a favorable eye upon
any stranger who came thither to favor it with his medical
knowledge, and that hence it rarely happened that any one suc-
ceeded in an examination. My affairs in this place were there-
fore soon settled, and I retraced my steps as soon as possible to
Naumburg, and soon resolved to pass my examination in Dres-
den, and to settle in Zschopau, in the Saxon Harz Mountains,
which had been represented to me a friendly place and in need
of a physician.
Hartmann now relates that he only remained in Zschopau
five years, when he was obliged to go to Leipsic, on account
of the poverty of the inhabitants. He also relates some anec-
dotes relating to Frederick Hahnemann, who practiced for a time
in the neighborhood of Zschopau.
Hahnemann here got into trouble with the authorities, and
Hartmann continues: Frederick Hahnemann's course showed
me negatively what course to pursue in this little city in the
mountains in order to be on good terms with both parties, the
profession and the laity. Had not my method of treatment been
suspected in the first few weeks of my practice and very soon rec-
ognized as Hahnemannian, I should not have found it necessary
to conceal it, or in various ways to hide my true sentiments, so
that I might not be taken for a Homœopath, at least, in the be-
ginning of my career, as this would have been attended with
many unpleasant circumstances. My remarkable cures soon
gained for me a great reputation, but, from this poor manufac-
turing country, little profit. Afterwards I made no secret of my
method of cure, and I remained undisturbed during my resi
dence at Zschopau.
It was soon after settling at this place that Stapf, Gross and
Muller commenced to publish the Archives* whose numbers
soon found their way into my hands I was deeply interested in
this journal and influenced by a desire to become capable of con-
tributing to its pages; it excited me powerfully, not only to re-
newed diligence in my practice, but to increased efforts for lit-
erary acquirements. However the matter went no further than
a good intention, since my courage failed me and my time was
* Archiv fur die homoopathische Heilkunst.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
67
so much taken up by my overwhelming daily labors that in the
evening, when half dead, I had little energy for any labor. Thus
my early desires would probably have never amounted to any-
thing more than earnest desires nor ever have been realized had
I not soon after received from my friend Stapf a kind letter con-
taining a request that I should enter into their association and
take part in their labors. My first effort was the communication
of a case treated by me, which, however, gave me but little sat-
isfaction, as it seemed to me that, considering the condition of
Homœopathy, others could obtain but little advantage from it.
I felt deeply that there must be some other, some better way to
aid beginners at their entrance into Homœopathy, for it seemed
to me that these few isolated cases afforded but little aid to them.
However, a beginning is ever beset with difficulty, and a begin-
ning must be made, though it might appear imperfect in its
first rudiments.
The idea was present with me by day and night, and yet I
could never satisfy myself with any plan till a happy circum-
stance dispelled my irresolution. I had been frequently con-
sulted by letter by a fellow of the College of Health of Dresden
in reference to a patient, and the Homoeopathic treatment pur-
sued proved successful; the favorable result had encouraged a
young physician in Dresden and incited him to make a
trial of Homoeopathy; at the same time he made the acquaint-
ance of Dr. Trinks, who had previously become somewhat ac-
quainted with Homœopathy, and they both wished to confer
with me on the subject in person, since our epistolary communi-
cations in which we had previously engaged proved unsatisfac-
tory and took too much time. These communications passed
mostly between a mutual friend, through whom we also agreed
to meet at Freiburg, to which I was all the more willing, as it
enabled me to make a visit to a patient-a noble lady-which I
could no longer defer. There it was that Trinks, Wolf and I
met in the year 1824, and after a friendly supper became so ab-
sorbed in discussing Homeopathy, and especially the Materia
Medica, that the breaking day surprised us in our conferenee, and
nature was constrained to consider our sleep for this night as
accomplished.
This was the occasion upon which my ideas assumed a form
which ever after possessed me more fully, but which was not
68
STORY OF THE PROVERS
realized and brought to a full accomplishment till after the lapse
of some years, partly from the want of sufficiently ample ex-
perience and partly from the necessity of my engaging in an ex-
tensive course of study. It was Wolf who, provided with the
four volumes of Hahnemann's Materia Medica, so closely plied
me with questions about the effect of remedies in various
diseases, distinguished by their collective names, that for the
first time their effects assumed a distinct form, and I learned
rightly to appreciate the single symptoms since I formed in my
own mind an exact connection for each separate disease
characterized by a general name, and thus learned to compre-
hend with more precision and promptitude the general character
of each particular drug. Hence I am to this day under great
obligations both to Wolf and Trinks, since I am indebted to
them for marking out the way for the future Homœopathic
Therapeutics, to the study of which I devoted my leisure
moments for years.
Some time after this meeting I received a visit during the
summer from Dr. Moritz Muller, of Leipsic, whose acquaint-
ance I then made for the first time. He communicated to me
everything referring to Homoeopathy in the most concise manner,
since his stay at Zschopau was very brief. He said that a new
project was entertained by many Homœopaths, which was first
broached by Hartlaub, sen., and with which Wolf and Trinks
had expressed themselves as much pleased. It was a plan to
form a society of corresponding physicians, who should, from
time to time, communicate their practical experience as well as
anything else pertaining to Homœopathy to the Secretary of
the Society (Dr. Hartlaub, sen.), who should then print this
in numbers at the expense of the contributors, amongst whom
the numbers were to be distributed. From what has already
been said, it was evident that Homoeopathy had entered upon
its first transition stage, through which, aroused from its infancy,
it must necessarily pass since it already presented indications of
a more active life, which should be directed to a more rapid
development and more extensive acquisition, amongst which, in
particular, the cultivation of the collateral branches was to be
reckoned. Time has demonstrated the justice of this view,
since from that period Homœopathy advanced with the strides
of a giant both at home and abroad.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
69
In November, 1826, I left Zschopau and went to Leipsic,
where I began a new career. During the first years of my
residence there I had to struggle with many difficulties, for the
throng of patients to the physicians with which Leipsic was
already abundantly supplied was not very great, and I had plenty
of leisure which I devoted to the preparation of my first work:
"Upon the use of Homœopathy in Diseases, in Accordance With
Homœopathic Principles," and other essays which appeared in
the Archives. The critics were in these days lenient and for-
bearing towards works of this character, for they appeared none
too often; and hence they always met a friendly welcome in the
domain of Homoeopathy, that other capable minds might be en-
couraged and spurred up publicly to unfold the powers of their
minds. Some, and indeed many, would now hardly be worth
printing, but then we learned something from every article,
since everything was new to us, even those things which at this
day have become notorious.
On this account we owe the critics thanks for the considera-
tion with which they treated these efforts, never destroying but
always encouraging new attempts, which thus brought a rich
harvest to Homoeopathy, which we certainly could not have ex-
pected had the unsparing critics of the present time held sway.
Hence I cannot assert that my little work had any particular
merit; but of this much I am certain, that the delight with
which I heard it praised excited me with increased diligence to
engage incessantly in literary labors, which, with my constantly
increasing practice, left me little rest.
The first two years offered nothing of interest as far as Homo-
opathy was concerned, although they were memorable to me
from having made the acquaintance of many of the elder
Homœopathic physicians, among whom I may mention Rummel
and Schweickert. The former took complete possession of me
by his "Lights and Shadows of Homœopathy," after reading
which it was my great desire to make his acquaintance.
With the latter I became acquainted at a consultation and
esteemed him as a learned man; but I never felt myself drawn
towards him, and the future gave me manifold proofs that he
often interfered in an unfriendly manner with my affairs; in a
word, we never seemed to be at the same pole, which was not
altogether his fault, but partly mine, to which my timid retiring
70
STORY OF THE PROVERS
within myself before a determined and imposing bearing
undoubtedly contributed. At the same time he was not always
forbearing towards the frailties of others and often lordly,
despotic and even intriguing, which will be apparent in the
course of this narrative.
It was Dr. Haubold, a recent convert to Homoeopathy, and
one who was constrained by his own experience to acknowledge
the falsity of the assertion made by many of our Allopathic
colleagues, that it was an easy matter to acquire the Homoeopathic
method of treatment; it was Dr. Haubold, I say, to whom the
inquiry suggested itself, whether it would not be of advantage to
Homœopathists to assemble occasionally in order to consult to-
gether regarding the new doctrine and to submit important
interests connected therewith, difficult cases, diseases, etc., to
each other's judgment. The proposal seemed to me a good one,
though Haubold himself surely will not deny that his own
interest suggested it to his mind, since Hornburg and Franz
particularly, whom he wished invited besides me, had already
acquired great skill in the practice of Homoeopathy. Be that as
it may, the object was a good one, and we all felt in the course
of time that the meetings were attended with no little profit
even to us elder Homœopathists.
But as it always happens with such enterprises, there were
many to look kindly upon it, whom it was, nevertheless, difficult
to get together; thus our first meeting, in the commencement of
the year 1829, consisted of the four already mentioned, who
came together upon a formal invitation from Haubold. We
were not long, however, in convincing ourselves that we were
mutually profited by these meetings; after that no formal invita-
tions were necessary, but we found ourselves-I think it was
every fortnight-at the appointed day and hour, now with this,
now with that one, for the purpose of living a few hours for
science. Thus we went quietly on till July, when the late Dr.
Müller received intelligence of our meetings and wished to take
part in them, in which we all most cheerfully acquiesced and
received him by acclamation. At this time we held our meet-
ings every month; but as Hahnemann's Doctor's Jubilee was to
be celebrated on the roth of the next month a special meeting
was appointed a few days before that date, at which many mat-
ters of importance were proposed and agreed upon for the com-
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
71
ing festivity. The events of this festive day are already so well
known through Stapf's Archives that they need not be detailed
here; but the remembrance of those events substantiates the as-
sertion already made, that the previous year prepared the way
for important changes in Homœopathy, since at this meeting
the suggestion advanced by our friend, Dr. Franz, since de-
ceased, was accepted and matured, to establish a great and
general union, which should meet every year on the 10th day
of August, and consult upon the interests of Homœopathy and
the best manner of advancing these interests at home and abroad.
This thought could not certainly have been discussed with much
interest had not we Leipsic physicians already learned how
profitable such meetings were. The Union still exists under
the name of the Central Union, and its meetings would be
larger than they have recently been were it not that their use-
fulness had been questioned in several quarters. I am ready to
acknowedge that the written essays which are there presented
may not always be as useful as their various authors intended;
it is also true that we soon after find the same essays in the
Homœopathic journals, and on this account many avoid the ex
pense of a journey to the place of meeting, which is often
distant; but the assertion that oral discussions upon the points
of Homœopathy, which are not yet sufficiently settled, would be
much more advantageous is not so very evident, for in these
discussions only those would take part who are gifted with
fluency of speech, while others, quite as learned perhaps, and
able to render good service with their pen, but not favored with
these shining talents, are compelled to withhold their views.
At such meetings there should be one or more secretaries, who
should report the proceedings carefully and superintend their
publication. But there are other objects to be gained by these
meetings which are highly desirable and afford great pleasure—
it is the forming a personal acquaintance with advocates of the
same faith and actuated by the same spirit. This is an advan
tage which I have always highly prized, and men whom I have
already known by their literary works either become invested
with a new interest or are more estranged from me, since the
personal bearing but too often carries the imprint of truth or
falsehood, and by the aid of this I have often been able to deduce
the sterling qualities or the deception, the boasting, the eccen-
•
72
STORY OF THE PROVERS
tricities, etc., from the printed essays, and from mature expe-
rience I have but seldom erred. The advantage is great, and I
have secretly made an apology and reparation to many whose
writings filled me with distrust, when their personal bearing
and a better acquaintance with them, and their frank, open,
straightforward and honorable views firmly convinced me of
their worth, which, without a personal acquaintance, I could
never have been brought to acknowledge.
In an obituary notice of Franz Hartmann published soon after
his death occurs the following:* Dr. Franz Hartmann, one of
the earliest and most zealous pupils of Hahnemann, died at Leip-
sic on the 10th of October, 1853. He was born on the 18th of
May, 1796, consequently not very old when taken away from his
mourning family and friends. His constitution had been nat-
urally feeble, indeed it was a wonder how the venerable patient
kept such a weak organization alive. He had labored for years
under hydro thorax, but by a most careful and discriminating
selection of the Homœopathic remedies he kept the enemy at
bay from time to time, and when he had thus succeeded the face
of the kind old gentleman would light up with a cheerful smile.
Once when the writer of this visited him in 1848, Hartmann
just then, having recovered from such an attack, indulged even
in a pleasant joke at the cost of Prof. E. C. Bock, the celebrated
leader of the pathological school in Leipsic, whom he (Hart-
mann) had deprived, as he jocularly remarked, of an autopsy.
Bock, having pronounced Hartmann's disease incurable, had
fixed the day of his death with a coolness and certainty of re-
sult that aroused Hartmann's most intense energy. From that
moment, continued Hartmann, I was determined to cheat
Bock of his post-mortem examination and cold diagnostic
triumph; I began to study closer than ever my own symptoms,
took the remedies, and now you see me comparatively restored,
although I should have died from suffocation a fortnight ago
according to Bock.
In an article in the British Journal the author says:† For
eight years before his death he was almost entirely confined to
his room by a wasting disease that caused his legs to swell and
exude. When we visited him in 1850 and 1851 he was
*Quarterly Hom. Magazine, April, 1854, p. 47.
†Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xii., p. 159.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
73
emaciated to a skeleton, and a martyr to the most agonizing suf-
ferings; but still he continued to labor at his literary work, by
which alone he could support his family. He loved nothing bet-
ter than to hear of the progress of Homœopathy, and mani-
fested the most eager interest in everything relating to its exter-
nal and internal development. Disease and pain had produced
an appearance of premature old age on his features-he looked
at least twenty years older than he was; but his eye still sparkled
with all the fire of youth when he was engaged in an animated
discussion on some practical or theoretical point connected with
Homœopathy, and his mind was as clear and his intellect as
vigorous as it had been in his best days. He seemed to forget
his sufferings, and the res angusta domi they occasioned in the
constant literary labors in which he was engaged.
He has left behind him a widow and four children to de-
plore his loss. His oldest son is settled among us at Norwich,
where he enjoys the confidence of a large clientele. A few
weeks before his death we received from Dr. Hartmann a long
and cheerful letter, wherein he mentioned, interalia, that it was
proposed to hold a meeting of the Central German Society for
1855, the centenary year of Hahnemann's birth, at Dresden, and
thence to make a pilgrimage to his birth place, Meissen How
many of Hahnemann's immediate disciples will remain to muster
at his birth-place on his 100th birthday?
Dr. Lorabacher says of Hartmann:* A simple, ingenious,
practical man. With no desire to shine or put himself promi-
nently forward, he endeavored to promote the new doctrine of
whose truth he was convinced by continuous earnest work.
The proofs of this are his provings, whereby our Materia
Medica has been enriched by a considerable number of reliable
symptoms, as also his literary activity which was directed to the
publication of large works, among which we may mention hist
Therapie, to the writing of articles in the Archiv and Allgemeine
hom. Zeitung, to the editing of the last named periodical, which
he undertook at first in connection with Gross and Rummel, and
subsequently carried on with the latter to the end of his life.
Of Hahnemann's earliest disciples he was the only one who
after the first enthusiasm had evaporated permitted himself to
assume, to a certain degree, a critical attitude, and did not
*Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 455.
74
STORY OF THE PROVERS
shrink from opposing some of Hahnemann's views, whereby he
latterly incurred the anger of the founder of Homoeopathy. His
amiability, his open, honest character. gained him many true
friends, who were a great consolation to him under the many
misconceptions and hateful enmities by which he was assailed.
I gratefully recall the friendliness with which he received me,
when I came to Leipsic in 1845 to study Homœopathy, and with
which he assisted me in my studies.
WRITINGS.
Dietetics for Everybody, presented according to Homœopathic Princi-
ples. Leipsic. Hauck. 1830.
Dietetics for the Sick who subject themselves to Homœopathic Treat-
ment. Dresden. Arnold. 1830.
Practical Experience in the Domain of Homœopathy. Part I. The Use
of Nux vomica in Diseases, according to Homœopathic Principles. Leip-
sic. Woller. 1828.
Part II. The Use of the Medicines, Aconitum napellus, Bryonia alba
and Mercurius according to Homoeopathic Principles. Leipsic. Hart-
knoch. 1835. Translated by Okie. Phila. Dobson.
Dobson. 1841.
Therapy of Acute Diseases elaborated according to Homœopathic Prin-
ciples. Two Vols. Leipsic. Schumann. 1831-32.
The same. Second edition. Leipsic. Schumann. 1834.
Special Therapy of Acute and Chronic Diseases according to Homœo-
pathic Principles. Third rev. enlarged edition. Leipsic. T. O. Weigel.
1846-55. Three vols. American translation, New York. Radde. 1847.
Hempel.
Spanish translation of same. Translated into French by A. Jourdan and
from the French by Pio Hernandez y Espeso. Madrid. Vol. I part 1, 1850.
French translation of the Homœopathic Therapeutics of Children's Dis-
eases. Translated from the German, with notes by Leon Simon. Paris.
1853.
The Same. Translated into Spanish from the German. Madrid. 1853.
The Same. Translated into Spanish under the direction of Miguel
Valero. Madrid. Julian Pena. 1853.
Co-editor of Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung, 1832-53. Editor of
Caspari's Domestic Physician, Pocket Companion for Newly Married,
Homœopathic Pharmacopoeia.
Co-editor Year Book of the Homœopathic Hospital at Leipsic. 1833-34.
Journal fur hom. Arzneimittellehre. Leipsic. 1839.
Diseases of Children and their Treatment according to the Homœopathic
System. Leipsic. T. O. Weigel. 1852. Translated by Hempel. New York.
Radde. 1853.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
75
No data obtainable.
J. C. HARTUNG.
ADOLPH FERDINAND HAYNEL.
Hartmann says:* Hahnemann took two of his pupils to
Coethen, Drs. Haynel and Mosdorf. Haynel led the life of a true
nomad, was at Berlin at the first invasion of the cholera, then at
Merseberg for the purpose of assisting Dr. Rummel, where I
saw him again; finally he visited me in 1830, in Leipsic, where
he provided himself with a large stock of Homoeopathic medi-
cines with the intention of going to North America; since which
time I have not heard from him.
Hering says: † Dr. A. J. Haynel died at Dresden, August
28, 1877, æt. 81. He was an inmate of Hahnemann's family
for more than ten years, and proved a number of remedies for
him. About the year 1835 he came to America and resided first
at Reading, Pa., then at Philadelphia. In 1845 he lived in
New York, and still later in Baltimore, from whence he re-
turned to Europe several years ago.
Hering thus speaks of Haynel in another place: One of the
oldest of Hahnemann's pupils and indeed the first who was a
member of his family-the only student living of the first
Leipsic period of Hahnemann's career-Dr. A. J. Haynel—even
now (1868) hale and hearty and actively furthering our cause-
mentioned in a conversation with Dr. P. P. Wells that he had
given Spongia in heart disease, etc.
Dr. Gray, in an address before the New York Hom. Med. So-
ciety, said that Haynel established Homœopathy on a firm basis
in Baltimore as early as 1838.
Dr. Raue says: I knew Haynel having often met him at Dr.
Hering's. He had been an inmate of Hahnemann's family and
he had been engaged to Caroline, Hahnemann's daughter but
for some reason the affair was broken off, and that is likely the
reason why Haynel left Hahnemann. While in Philadelphia he
was very ill with typhoid fever and Hering treated him; he was
at death's door when Dr. Hering was induced to give him just
*N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 210. Med. Couns., Vol. xi.
† Hom. Times, (N. Y.), Vol. v., p. 216.
76
STORY OF THE PROVERS
one drop of red wine on the tongue, and this was the turning
point in the sickness and he commenced to get better. Hering
was greatly pleased. When the cholera appeared in 1851 Hay-
nel was in Baltimore and was quite successful with a certain
remedy. He sent a box of powders containing this remedy to
Hering, but did not tell him its name. Hering wrote asking
the name, but Haynel refused it. What is the name? I will
not tell. This caused a coolness between them that continued
for some time. It was not long after this when Haynel went to
live with his sister at Dresden. Then, no doubt remembering
Hering's kindness, he repented of his refusal to tell the name
of the cholera remedy and wrote to Hering and revealed the
secret. The remedy was Bryonia. Haynel's sister's son went
to Baltimore while he lived there, and he sought to start him in
practice; but the young man was just from the universities of
Germany and he preferred to practice according to his own be-
lief.
Haynel was a quiet, reserved man, corpulent and with a
smooth shaven face.
WRITINGS.
Analecta ad historiam circuitus sanguinis. Jenæ: Schreberi et soc. 1820.
GUST. and H. HEMPEL.
No data obtainable of either.
CHRISTIAN THEODORE HERRMANN.
Hering mentions Herrmann as the apostle of Homœopathy in
Russia. Rapou, writing in 1832, says: † I regret that I did not
see in Brunswick Dr. Herrmann, who had for some time practiced
in Russia and who has shown us the actual state of our method
in that vast empire. (Archives, Vol. xiv., part 1.)
Hartmann says of Chr. Teuthorn and C. Th. Herrmann: ‡
* Hahn Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 175.
† Rapou's "Histoire de la doctrine med. homoeopathique," Vol. ii., p.
600.
"Geschichte der Homoopathie." Kleinert. Leipzig. 1863, p. 97. N.
W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 184. Med. Counsellor, Vol. xi., p. 238.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
77
They were not enthusiastic; after a time track was lost of them,
so far as I am concerned, for in spite of careful inquiry I never
heard their names mentioned in connection with Homoeopathy,
hence nothing further is to be said of them.
After careful search through the German journals it is impos-
sible to find any record of the lives or death of these men.
CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB HORNBURG. *
Christian Gottlob Hornburg was born in Chemnitz in the
Royal Saxon Erz-Geberge, October 18, 1793, where his father,
who is still living (1834), is a stocking weaver. Quite early in
his youth he attended the lyceum there, where he was educated
with the intention of becoming a philologist and pedagogue;
here he greatly distinguished himself.
He gained the prize offered by a learned society, through an
original Latin poem. In the year 1813, without any
means of his own. but trusting to the support of some philan-
thropic individuals, he visited the University at Leipsic in order
to devote himself to the study of theology. But in the course
of one year already he developed a decided inclination for med-
icine, and encouraged by a well-meaning and intelligent friend
to whom he communicated his intention namely, the merchant
Becker in Chemnitz, who promised to support him in this new
career, he passed over to the exclusive study of the healing art.
-
Besides other medical lectures, he attended with particular
preference those of Dr. Hahnemann, who had then lately ar-
rived in Leipsic from Torgau and commenced his lectures.
With these lectures and with the correct views thus acquired
concerning the nature and quality of medicine as practiced
heretofore, and with his acquaintance with the new reformed art
of healing, a new life began for him. It could not be but that
his clear, vivid and free spirit should enter most deeply into
these views. Unfortunately these studies were suddenly and
violently interrupted by the death of his patron whose support
alone had enabled him to continue at the University, and being
deprived of all financial aid he was compelled to leave Leipsic
and to return to his native city, where he found for some time a
* By Dr. Stapf in Archiv fur die hom. Heilkunst, Vol. xiv., pt. 2, p. 120.
See also, Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. iv., p. 78.
•
78
STORY OF THE PROVERS
scanty support through his labors in the office of a lawyer of
that place. But as favorable projects for continuing his studies
appeared after a time, he returned to Leipsic to complete his
medical course.
A few years later he honorably passed the theoretical examin-
ation as baccalaureate, after which he attended the public insti-
tutions, the lying-in hospital and the clinic, during the years
1818 and 1819, while he pursued with increasing zeal the study
of Homœopathy. Intimately acquainted with this new doctrine,
and advanced in many ways by Hahnemann's personal inter-
course and favor, he even then accomplished many Homœo-
pathic cures with success and fame, and proclaimed himself, with
his natural frankness, in his own forceful manner, only too re-
gardless of consequences, in favor of the new method of healing
and opposed to the old.
By this, as well as by his successful cures of certain cases
given up by other physicians, he drew on himself a
number of enemies, but also gained a sort of fame and sym-
pathy, and even attracted the notice of the authorities. His
course of action, which was not indeed strictly legal, but which
in others, who were not devoted to Homoeopathy, was nearly
always permitted to escape reproof, often gave offense, and be-
came the occasion of many disagreeable reminders and persecu-
tions. No occasion was allowed to pass to denounce him on
account of his unauthorized cures, because he had not yet ac-
quired the license for practicing. Still how many baccalaurei
medicine can do this in Leipsic quite openly and without fear;
but these are of course honest adherents of the legitimate (?) art
of healing!
Thus he became involved in the most disagreeable judicial
trials and punished with fines, yea, with imprisonment. Yea,
in November, 1819, his Homoeopathic case of medicines was by
order of the authorities taken from him by the actuary and the
apparitor of the University, and there is a legend that the same
was formally buried in the Paulina cemetery.
During the years 1814-1820, Hornburg did yeoman service
with respect to extending our knowledge of remedial agents, as
he, with great self-sacrifice, acute penetration and conscientious
fidelity, instituted provings of the medicines on himself; the
proofs of this are abundantly found in Hahnemann's "Materia
Medica Pura."
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
79
Several attempts to secure a medical diploma in various
universities failed, as they wished to treat him most rigorously
and to make the matter as difficult as possible since Hornburg
had an ill-name on account of his love for Homœopathy. It
may be, indeed, that Hornburg may not have acquired and re-
tained the highest degree of readiness in the Allopathic doc-
trines, which he did not esteem very highly, and which is
nevertheless insisted on when an examination is made especially
severe. In the year 1818 he married a Miss Kuettner, with
whom he lived in contented wedlock, but without any chil-
dren.
-
The zeal with which Hornburg lived and worked for Homœ-
opathy, his solid knowledge in this department, his many suc-
cessful cures, and especially his openness and readiness to give
information to every searcher after truth, gained him many
friends; especially many physicians in other places, who desired
to become better acquainted with Homoeopathy, turned to him
and always returned from him well instructed and satisfied.
Thus in living intercourse with the friends of Homoeopathy, in
restless practical activity, undismayed by his many persecutions
and trials, he lived till the year 1833, and, as he was naturally
of a vigorous bodily constitution, he would have retained his
health for yet a long time, but that, in consequence of the
grippe which was epidemic in the spring of 1833, and by which
he also was seized, a trouble of the chest that had been latent
in him now developed more and more. He succeeded, indeed,
by the use of the most appropriate remedies, in substantially im-
proving his condition; but a violent emotion which seized him
on hearing of the publication on August 6th of a judgment con-
demning him to two months' imprisonment acted so injuriously
on his health, already so weakened, that he was seized on
August 9th with a violent hæmorrhage just as he was about to
travel to Coethen for the celebration of August 1oth; the
hæmorrhage was several times repeated the same day.
This judgment against Hornburg was in consequence of a
criminal trial on account of his treatment of a woman suffering
from a violent attack of pneumonia, and who did not die from
his treatment, but only after she had for nine days been treated
by a medical officer who was known to be one of the most vio-
lent opponents of Homoeopathy. The disease of Hornburg
80
STORY OF THE PROVERS
developed with an invincible violence and changed into actual
pulmonary consumption, of which he died on February 4th,
1834.
Attended by his more intimate friends and a great number of
the inhabitants of Leipsic, his earthly remains were entombed
on February 7th.
As a physician he was distinguished by a deep and active
love for his career, by a rare acuteness and clearness of observa-
tion, exact knowledge of Homoeopathy, undisturbable equanim-
ity, firmness and security in action whence he enjoyed the
fairest success and extended recognition in a practice which was
very wide and extended quite beyond the boundaries of Leipsic,
yes, of Saxony. As a man he was efficient, sincere, open, liberal,
and zealous. When the advancement and defense of what he
considered to be the truth was at stake, he indeed not seldom
appeared to be regardless of others; and the great good that was
in him was enveloped in forms so rough, and he violated the
laws of a higher and more subtle refinement, and of the neces-
sary prudence and urbanity which may well be conjoined with.
the purest and most ardent zeal for the truth to such a degree
that he only too often gave his friends as well as his enemies
occasion to lament these foibles.
Hering says:* Next came the great practitioner amongst
the poor, Chr. G. Hornburg, one of the oldest disciples of
Hahnemann, but who never could obtain a diploma, and there-
fore had to practice under certain persecutions (his box with
medicine was once buried by the authorities with great eclat in
a public place). He it is whom we have to thank for the first
cures of pleurisy and pneumonia with Aconite.
He had proved
on himself and others, particularly women, for the second vol-
ume of the Materia Medica Pura, Causticum.
Rapou says of Hornburg: † Christian Hornburg was among
the number of the students at Leipsic who composed the first
audience of Hahnemann. He was like Franz, one of those
generous and rare dispositions who adopt frankly that which
they take to be the truth, and do not hesitate at any sacrifice to
reach it. Each one of these students followed a different
branch of knowledge. Caspari devoted himself to didactic
* Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 175.
Rapou. "Historie de la doc. Hom.," Vol. ii., p. 141.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
81
writings, Franz to pharmaceutical researches, Hornburg selected
a way more direct, sure and efficacious-that of practice. Filled
with the experience of Hahnemann he become a brilliant and
successful practicing physician. To him belongs the glory of
greatly contributing to the triumph of our doctrines by clinical
results. It is the success that extended the growth of the
Homœopathic laity, and gave zeal to effectually counterbalance
the fury of the Allopathic physicians. He died in 1833 of a
neglected phthisis.
Hartmann says:* Hornburg was a very clear-headed fellow,
of humble origin, who had been educated at the Lyceum at
Chemnitz, where he had managed to not only pay his fees, but
to assist his very poor parents by singing in the choir and by
tutoring. He lacked in finish, for he never had been able to
associate intimately with persons of thorough culture and refine-
ment; during the time of my acquaintance with him he never
could readily lift himself above the common place, at least not
for any length of time, without feeling the pressure of his situa-
tion, and thus he found it difficult to move at ease in a refined
circle. His remarkable conversational powers, however, enabled
him to cover this defect, since he knew better than anyone else
to imitate and enact ridiculous situations, scenes and memorable
incidents and stories with such a humor and power of mimicry
that no one ever thought of weighing his uncouth expressions,
figures of speech, or gestures.
If later this weakness became obvious, his happy cures stood
him in good stead—a very talisman-and pleaded for him power-
fully. He thus gained a self-reliance and a certain tact in his
appearance which at times became an almost recklessness; it was
nothing unusual during his almost daily walks to one of the
suburbs of Leipsic, where he commonly met prominent citizens,
also daily guests, to make in the heat of conversation very im-
prudent speeches concerning the professors and officers of the
medical faculty; if these remarks were received without dissent
they were evidently repeated, as might be inferred from the
severity of his examinations. This course on the part of his
examiners should have brought him to his senses and should
have led him to be more cautious in his speech, but his intense
zeal for Homoeopathy, his firm faith in its superiority over the
* Med. Counselor, Vol. xi., p. 198. Kleinert's "Geschichte der Homo-
opathie," p. 90.
82
STORY OF THE PROVERS
older methods of cure, the stimulating effect of Hahnemann's
lectures, the real pleasure manifested by Hahnemann when he
repeated to him the sharp witticisms passed, only tended to con-
firm him in his chosen path; and thus his speeches grew in bold-
ness and became still more cutting, led to his failure in his
second examination, the proper examination for the doctor's de-
gree, and developed such a bitterness of wrathful indignation,
that to the very day of his death he could not rid himself of it,
It was a pity about Hornburg, for in him a great and talented
mind was lost. He did not use a very large number of remedies,
but the few he employed he knew so thoroughly, and by constant
use had so fully learned to understand their sphere of action,
that with the few he accomplished much more than most others
could with a large number of remedies less perfectly understood.
Of the so called antipsorics he only used Sulphur, Calcarea,
Silicea, Nitric acid and a few others.
But he was eminently practical, and nature had been lavish
to him in the bestowal of her gifts; often a few questions enabled
him to recognize with certainty the disease, and to select, with
unerring precision, the correct remedy. To him the daily duty
of a physician seemed a recreation, a matter of play; but in the
sick room one could see at a glance the seriousness with which
he devoted himself to his art, and one could not help loving
and respecting him. With a keenness of sight peculiar to him-
self he often selected the seemingly least important symptom as
the one especially characteristic and most valuable in the selec-
tion of the remedy, and he seldom erred; with the same intuitive
accuracy he would make the most daring prognosis, and point
out medicinal aggravations from beginning to end. I have often
witnessed this, and have had many a warm discussion with him
to combat this spirit of daring in him; but I never succeeded, for
he would always meet me with a long list of satisfactory cures,
looking upon unfavorable cases as the exception to the rule.
He demanded of others the same ability, and if they were not
able to command the same measure of perfection he deemed
them lazy; for it never occurred to him that he might be gifted
above them. As a man, to know Hornburg was to love and
revere him; he was a faithful friend, good-natured, sympathetic,
frank, obliging, ever ready to counsel and to aid; and only his
manifold bitter experiences, the complete ignoring of his true
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
83
worth, the slanders which followed him, the ever-recurring in-
trigues which beset him, the whisperings of hate which he was
forced to hear, furnished the first impulse to that growing dis-
trust of all men, even of his best friends, which cast such
a shadow upon the last few years of his life. This was
the man who, by his example and by his introducing
me to Hahnemann, exerted so great an influence upon my
whole life. Perhaps even without him my inclination might
have drawn me into the medical profession, but it is very doubt-
ful if I should have embraced Homœopathy; for in those days
to express faith in it exposed the student to all manner of
ridicule.
Hartmann says that Hornburg was the earliest friend of his
boyhood, and that when he at eighteen repaired to the Leipsic
University he became Hornburg's roommate, and in three
months' time had been introduced by him into the inner circle
of Hahnemann's patients.
Lorbacher says:* Hornburg and Stapf were the two to first
become closely connected with Hahnemann. Hornburg is rep-
resented to us as a man of great gifts, of extraordinary practical
talent, which gave him much certainty in the diagnosis of dis-
ease, as well as in the discovery of the right remedy, so that he
soon obtained the repute of a successful practitioner. But he
was deficient in refinement; his boyish manners, as well as his
disrespectful behavior, especially toward all opponents of Home-
opathy-he spared neither professor nor medical authorities-
created for him many enemies and drew upon him much perse-
cution, whereby the latter part of his life was much embittered,
and may have been in some respects unfavorable to the spread
of Homœopathy. And yet I am not prepared to say that occa-
sionally a rude attack at the proper time may not be more
effectual in advancing a cause than a delicate diplomacy. At
all events, Hornburg, by his contributions to the provings of
medicines, as well as by his mode of directing the attention of
students to Homœopathy, has rendered permanent service to our
cause.
Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii, p. 454.
84
STORY OF THE PROVERS
No data obtainable.
HUGO.
ERNST KUMMER.
Hering says that he was the youngest of the class, and that he
died as a practicing physician in Saxony. He was one of the
first who prescribed according to characteristic physiognomies.*
WRITINGS.
Diss. Obstetricia Brevem Partus Humani Normam Omnino Servantis His-
toriam Sistens. Jenae. Schreiberi. 1822.
CHRISTIAN FREIDRICH LANGHAMMER.
Hartmann says:† A few words must be said about Langhammer.
I would prefer to pass him in silence if I could do so, but the
frequent mention of his name by Hahnemann necessitates my
speaking of him. He was a small, somewhat ill-shaped man,
and this defect of body seemed to be reflected in his mind. Ten
years my senior, this dwarfed mental condition could only be
accounted for by an unwillingness to make the necessary exer-
tion, lack of diligence, the cherishing of barren ideas and specu-
lations, and a fondness for the far niente, characteristics which
he could not master, even at the University, which, however,
were brought into prominence by his poverty.
At heart he was a good fellow, but timid, diffident, suspecting,
all this largely because he was conscious of his intellectual weak-
ness. It may create surprise that I describe so painstakingly
the faults of Langhammer, but I am talking about the first
provers' union and the results of their work as shown in the
provings. The symptoms of each prover partake more or less of
his individuality. A man's individuality, however, does not
wholly depend upon his natural temperament or gifts, but is also
a true mirror of the passions, habits, etc., which affect not only
his acts, but his sensations, expressions and the functional
activity of his organism. This was the case with Langhammer.
If he did not live in a world of dreary imaginings he was
wont to give his mind to sensuous dreams of ecstacy. This ac-
*Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 176.
†N. W. J. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 189. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 243.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
85
counts for certain peculiarities in the mental and sexual symp-
toms of the remedies proven by him, and their similarity in the
various remedies. His other symptoms have scarcely any par-
ticular value, owing to a lack of exactness in the description of
his sensations, and of clear, precise language. Hahnemann was
usually obliged to name for him appropriate terms, of which he
then made the selection.
Most of the
Gross in the Archiv says of Langhammer:*
provers who are
who are introduced by name into Hahnemann's
work are personally known to me, and I remember one
person whose observations in a certain direction appeared
to me from the very first liable to suspicion. I mean Lang-
hammer, who was my fellow student at Leipsic, who with
much feebleness of body was certainly a healthy young man,
but lived in very straitened circumstances, by which his other-
wise timid disposition was made still more retiring and ren-
dered more liable to sorrow and care. For this reason all the
moral symptoms which he observed in himself are of little or
no value.
Let any one compare the symptoms of Ledum palustre
(147.150); Cicuta virosa (203.204): Calcarea acetica (227.229);
Cyclamen European (189.192); Acidum mur. (211); Ruta grav.
(254); Conium mac. (278); Spigelia anthelmintica (530); Ver-
bascum thapsus (140); Stannum (447): "Feels discontented
with his neighbors, and shuns them; withdraws into solitude
with tendency to weep; anguish as if he had committed some
crime; deep reflection on the present and the future"—often
repeated in the same words, but are conditions which must in
his circumstances have been pretty natural to my good friend
Langhammer, so that, practically, they lose all their value.
Also a great number of symptoms under the different medi-
cines show that he was quiet, absorbed in himself, not inclined
to speak.
Hering says:† Chr. Fr. Langhammer was one of the most
zealous provers, and one of the most careful and successful. He
was a hunchback, rather peculiar, and often the butt of ridicule
to the class, but much favored by Hahnemann. He cured a
* Archiv fur die hom. Heilkunst, Vol. xx., pt. 1., p. 76. Brit. Jour. Hom¸
Vol. xix., p. 626.
† Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 176.
86
STORY OF THE PROVERS
blind girl, of great beauty and some income, who married him
out of gratitude, and they lived together very happily. He
looked upon his old classmates with great contempt, because his
success in life had offended them. A stream of slanders has
since been poured over him, and, of course, all has been care-
fully repeated by the would be critics.
Lorbacher says:* The least important among the members of
this early circle of Hahnemann's disciples was undoubtedly
Langhammer, a man deformed in body and mind, without
energy, who spent his time in unprofitable brooding, and who
never could acquire any enthusiasm for the cause. Unfavorable
outward circumstances, for the successful combating of which
an energetic nature was necessary, may have contributed mate-
rially to his depressed disposition. On these accounts the value
of his contributions to the Materia Medica is, to say the least,
doubtful.
An interesting account of the provings of Langhammer may
be found in the Homoopathische Vierteljahrschrift, Vol. xiv.,
P. 406.
J. GOTTLOB LEHMANN.
In the Zeitung appears the following: † On January 9, 1865,
the former assistant of Hahnemann, Hofrath Lehmann died in
Coethen in his seventy-seventh year.
Dr. Lehmann became Hahnemann's assistant at Coethen about
1831-2, and remained with him during his stay in that place,
and after his departure for Paris took his place, where he re-
mained until his death. Hahnemann and himself continued to be
firm friends till the death of the former. Lehmann prepared his
medicines for him during all this time.
Some jealousy was excited during the hospital troubles by
Hahnemann appointing Lehmann as General Supervisor to the
Hospital. It was Dr. Lehmann who was sent by Hahnemann
to install Dr. Schweikert as Director of the Hospital.
Albrecht thus quotes from a letter about Lehmann: ‡ Hahne-
mann at Coethen, being unable to attend his numerous patients,
though engaged till a late hour at night, obtained the assistance
* Brit. Jour. Hom, Vol. xxxii., p. 457.
† Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. 1xx., p. 40.
"Biographisches Denkmal,” p. 106.
A
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
87
of Dr. Lehmann. He attended Hahnemann's patients for three
years, afforded his employer the most complete satisfaction, and
prepared the medicines with the greatest care. He won Hahne-
mann's heart more and more, not only by a zealous devotion to
his master, but by his candid unhesitating opposition elsewhere.
Hahnemann knew how to appreciate these qualities. Had he
not raised himself to the highest station in the world of science
by unwearying opposition to the old system? Had he not pene-
trated to the source of his new doctrine by his freedom of inves-
tigation? He reposed the highest confidence in Dr. Lehmann.
Even during Hahnemann's residence at Paris, Lehmann pre-
pared his medicines. His letters addressed to him from Paris
breathe the warmest friendship. At the request of Hahnemann
he had his bust taken. The busts of these two great men should,
like the originals, stand together. So Hahnemann directed.
CHRISTIAN F. G. LEHMANN.
No data obtainable.
No data obtainable.
FRANZ MEYER.
THEODORE MOSSDORF.
He was born in Dresden. He married Louisa, the youngest
daughter of Hahnemann. When Hahnemann went to Coethen
from Leipsic in 1821, Dr. Mossdorf accompanied him. In the
State document creating Hahnemann Hofrath, the Duke Ferdi-
nand of Coethen granted permission for Dr. Mossdorf to act as
Hahnemann's assistant, granting him the rights of preparing
and dispensing his own medicines, and decreeing him a patent
of naturalization. He received from the Duke a yearly allow-
ance of sixty thalers for medical attendance on the Duke's ser-
vants.
In August, 1832, Hahnemann writes to Duke Henry, the
brother of Ferdinand, who had died a short time before, saying
that he had for some years availed himself of permission to have
88
STORY OF THE PROVERS
an assistant, and continues: "Whom I would have still retained
had his moral conduct been only tolerable."
There was some serious disagreement between Hahnemann
and Mossdorf* and the latter left Coethen.
WRITINGS.
Synopsis calculorum urinariorum. Jenae. Schreiberi. 1820.
MORITZ WILHELM MULLER.
The editor of the Allgemeine hom. Zeitung thus writes:†
The ranks are ever becoming thinner and the circle closes
more narrowly around the old faithful votaries, friends and repre-
sentatives of Homoeopathy, and soon under the present circum-
stances even these few will have given up to the new generation
that place which in the former tempests only the inspired courage
and the joyous perseverance of the old Homoeopathic physicians
could have maintained. Must it not give deep grief to us, who
are left behind, when we see one after another of these old repre-
sentatives of Homœopathy part from us and lay his weary head
to rest? Surely even every one of the younger physicians will
drop with us a tear of sadness and of deeply-felt grief on the
grave of the brave champion for the holy cause, for our dear
friend who has been snatched away too early for the cause of our
science, namely, our beloved Moritz Wilhelm Muller.
He was born August 11th, 1784, at Klobitz, near Wittenberg,
where his father, Wilhelm Muller, was pastor. Almost in the
order of their birth, he, as the third son of his parents, was also
the third to die, and only the youngest of the four brothers still
survives. He was taught in his paternal home the first rudi-
ments of all knowledge, and his memory as well as his faculty
of comprehension must have been very acute in his youthful
years, as he was able, even in the last years of his life, to give
such remarkable proofs of his learning. He was at an early age
ready to attend a school which prepared students for the uni-
versity, for when only eleven years of age he attended the Gym-
nasium of Torgau, where he remained till his seventeenth year.
*Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxvi, p. 262.
†Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. xxxviii., p. 33.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
89
From there he went to the University of Wittenberg, where he
devoted himself to the study of medicine.
In physiology he was especially instructed by Krug, but in
medicine proper by Kreysig, Seiler and Erdmann. Here also he
learned to know Schweikert, Sr., who at that time determined
to choose the academic career. These two ardent spirits felt
much attracted to each other and became friends. This was the
reason why Muller, after having convinced himself for two years
also of the excellence of Homoeopathy, by his striking arguments
convinced Schweikert, who was then engaged as practicing
physician, as well as school physician in Grimma. When Muller
had entered on his twenty-first year he saw that the imperfect
polyclinical arrangements (there was no clinic at all) in Witten-
berg were not suitable for the gathering of practical experience.
He, therefore, left this seat of the Muses to acquire in Leipsic
what he still lacked. He was evidently born under a lucky
constellation or his wishes would not have been fulfilled so soon
and in a manner so unexpected to him.
Without any especial patron, when scarcely half a year at
Leipsic, he became assistant at Jacob's hospital and surgeon's
assistant there under the foremost clinical teacher; at the death
of this worthy man Reinhold, at the end of November, 1809,
three years later, he was entrusted with the direction of this
hospital and clinic, and the magistracy, as a free gift for filling
this post, gave him a municipal medical office.
After having favorably passed his examination as Magister, to
gain his diploma he defended his Commendatio historica: De
schola Lipsiensium clinica, on the 23d of December, 1809.
was promoted on the 19th of January, 1810, for which occasion
he wrote a thesis-De febre in inflammatoria.
By the death of Reinhold he also entered on his lucrative prac-
tice, and his kind, predisposing manner, which he retained till
his death, gained for him such complete confidence that he was
much sought for as a circumspect, talented practitioner. In the
meanwhile the year of war, 1813, so fatal to Saxony, approached.
The war-typhus, which had spread over the whole of Europe,
together with the great army fleeing from Russia, gave abun-
dant work to the physicians of Europe, whose number was not
excessive, so that even private physicians were obliged to assist
in the hospitals. This was, however, more the case in the year
90
STORY OF THE PROVERS
of the actual war, when many houses, churches, schools and
other public buildings had to be turned into hospitals. To
direct these new hospitals requisitions were made on renowned
physicians in private practice, who took students of medicine
and of surgery for their assistants. Our friend Muller was thus
appointed to take charge of such a hospital. His hospital was
rather remote, about a mile from the city on the Phonberg. His
two daily visits there lead us to suppose that he did not have
much free time at his disposal, especially since the typhus hos-
pital fever was doing murderous execution in the city and also
among the sick intrusted to his care. While he was acting as
a substitute in this hospital, he was later on lecturing on Materia
Medica, a science to which he was always devotedly attached.
When tranquility had been restored, in the year 1814, on
October 31 he married Miss Rosetta Neuss, with whom he lived
till his death in greatest happiness, which would have been more
undisturbed if his wife had not been several times in danger of
death from illness.
Two of his children are still alive, a son and a daughter. The
former, Dr. Clotar Muller, is already known by his works and
his deeds. And the latter has for several years been married to
a man of the highest scientific attainments, whose preference for
history has made it most desirable for him to enter into the
academic career.
Muller was a deep thinker and his mental powers were most
active with a subject with which he seemed least sceptical, and
this was his practice from the beginning of his medical career
even to the end of his life. His genial expressive countenance
made it appear at first sight that he was no common man. His
glowing enthusiasm for a cause that he had learned to love was
moderated by a critical disposition, which was characteristic of
him and kept him from rashness. He always applied to dog-
mas the measuring rod of experience, and his acute spirit glided
over all the weak places, before he gave his assent and made it
known by word of mouth. These words were indeed precious,
unsought, clear, and, keeping to the subject matter, sharp, but
without bitterness. Thus he became one of the first and one of
the best critics of the Hahnemannian doctrines, without seeking
or nourishing enmities against the author like the later Hygeists.
Nothing in science remained strange to him; he was always
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
91
striving to advance, and this the more quickly as he soon had
learned to know the weak side of practical medicine by his pene-
trating observations and experiences. He did not, like many
others, rest self-satisfied in the knowledge he had acquired, nor
did he selfishly rest on his laurels. He was ever urged forward to
enlarge his knowledge for the benefit of his suffering fellow-men,
and nothing escaped him from which he could derive any good
for this purpose.
With this active zeal it would have been impossible for him to
remain unacquainted with Homœopathy. He had already an
excellent practice which would not only have sufficiently occu-
pied another man, but would almost have crushed him; never-
theless Muller found time sufficient to become acquainted with
every new movement, and to convince himself as to its reality
and value. So it was also with Homoeopathy. After this had
attained to some acceptance in Leipsic, patients from other
places applied to Hahnemann, among whom Prince Schwartzen-
berg was especially eminent. I remember very well that time
in the year 1819, when Muller sent his amanuensis to me with
the request to lend him for a short time my copy of the "Orga-
non" to read through. Shaking my head, I handed it to him
with the remark that so celebrated a star of the first magnitude
in the allopathic firmament would hardly accept Homoeopathy
with firm faith. But as we are sometimes deceived in this life,
it was so in this case. The power of truth manifested itself most
gloriously and victoriously in Muller's unprejudiced and pure
spirit. He became filled with an increasing love for Homœopa-
thy the better he became acquainted with it, and became its
zealous friend and adherent with no thought as to the opinion of
his former friends, with no thought that his conversion to the re-
formed medical art (as Muller himself was the first to denomi-
nate it) brought him for a time great pecuniary losses, as a
number of his patients were not of the same opinion with him,
and sought another physician.
Soon he heartily and confidingly joined the then so small com-
pany who had the same convictions, and by his words and deeds.
gave also to others manifold opportunity to pursue a similar
end. This may appear from the Leipziger Tageblatt, of 1821.
A pernicious epidemic of scarlatina was then prevailing in
Leipsic, when he wrote an article in that paper under the head-
92
STORY OF THE PROVERS
ing, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." In this
article he urgently recommended Hahnemann's treatment of the
disease. Several like minded physicians combined with him and
formed a society under the protection of which the first Homœo-
pathic journal, the Archiv fur der Homoopathischen Heilkunst,
was called into life. The first number of this journal contained
some solid articles from his pen, and for a long time he took an
active part in it. In many ways opportunities offered themselves
to show his penetration and activity of spirit as well as his
rich experience and energetic zeal for the good cause, for only a
few of us were as well able as he to give a true explanation to
appearances unfavorable to Homœopathy, to counteract intrigues,
to prevent collisions with the state, with municipal and medical
authorities and with the druggists. Many Homoeopathists in-
volved in lawsuits, persecuted and disgraced, were rescued by
his sharp, incisive pen from their desperate situation. Yes,
despite of his noble and dignified style he did not hesitate in
such cases to give the sharpest points to his foil of attack; this
several times exposed him to fines, by which the authorities
hoped to paralyze his energy. But they mistook Muller's char-
acter. He was not to be easily rebuffed. When he was con-
vinced of the truth of a cause he recognized no higher anthority
than justice; the medical officers highest in degree could not
daunt him when they exposed themselves by shallow reasonings
and false statements. This may be proved by the titles of two
of his pamphlets.
In the year 1828 he received the very honorable request to
treat an august member of the reigning family in Saxony
Homœopathically, and the order stated that he could act accord-
ing to his own choice and would not be obliged to first consult
the court physicians.
Our friend Muller was very active in the preparation for the
celebration of Hahnemann's jubilee in 1829. He was a special
originator and joint founder of the Central Society, and just at
the time when this society was most active and influential he
was its director, and very zealously and circumspectly guided
the work of the committee which was then much occupied with
establishing the hospital at Leipsic.
Whoever knows with what chicaneries the establishment of a
new hospital, especially of a Homoeopathic hospital, the first not
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
93
only in Saxony but in the whole of Europe had to contend
with, may be able to form some idea of the many unnecessary
communications to the city council, the ministry and the medi-
cal authorities, which all fell to the part of our friend to prepare.
For he was the notable man among us, and by his prudence and
skill he understood how to bring the matter to a successful
issue, and he accomplished this in the short space of five weeks.
The definite resolution to establish a Homœopathic hospital
was adopted by the Central Society on the 10th of August, and
as early as the end of September, 1832, Muller received a letter
full of praise and thanks from Hahnemann, to whom he had
constantly reported all the steps taken in the matter. By this
letter Muller felt himself well repaid for all his cares and trou-
ble, and he was from then onward even more ready to make
any sacrifice so that the work which owed its success almost to
him alone soon came into actual operation. After these honest
and altogether unselfish efforts and exertions he must have been
not only astounded but deeply agitated and mortified to see
Hahnemann publish in the Tageblatt of Leipsic a deeply in-
sulting article against several honored Homoeopathic physicians
of this city, warning the public against the Homoeopathic
treatment they would receive at their hands. And this after
Hahnemann's flattering letter of September 1st.
That libellous article could only have been caused by unhappy
back biting and gossip! However much Muller's activity may
have been impeded, his spirit broken, and his participation in
everything pertaining to Homoeopathy paralyzed, he neverthe-
less undertook the direction of the Homoeopathic hospital for
the first half year, and delivered lectures on Homœopathy
which he printed by installments in the Allgemeine hom. Zeit-
ung; but he refused to have a special reprint of these lectures
made, though an offer was made him to that effect by a book-
seller.
•
Through his many-sided activity there was formed in the
year 1833 after the local society here had quietly disbanded, the
Freie Verein fur Homoopathie (Free Union for Homeopathy).
In this he co-operated till his death, but lived more for himself
and his family and did not willingly go into print except when
the hospital founded by him unavoidably demanded it.
Though he had suffered much from the founder of Homœop-
94
STORY OF THE PROVERS
athy, and perhaps even more from false friends, he did not
become bitter, but retained his noble, not to say, stately bearing
with respect to those unprofitable matters, and thus increased
the esteem in which he was held by his true friends, and these
friends included probably most of the genuine scientific Homœo-
paths, for to win the victory over himself when a man is justly
displeased is worthy of the true man.
In his widely extended practice mostly among the higher
classes he enjoyed the firm confidence of his patients and the
best success in his purely Homoeopathic treatment. This in part
made him forget the troubles which envy, malice and intrigue.
had so abundantly heaped upon him. He eagerly followed and
industriously studied every advance in the science of medicine,
in order that he might not fall behind the younger physicians
who would become acquainted with these new phenomena even
while at the University. But besides this he occupied himself
in his leisure hours with history, geography and politics. His
extraordinary memory for names and for numbers was astonish-
ing, and he could name for almost every day of the year some
historical event that had occurred, without appearing to desire
at all to boast of such knowledge. With geography it was the
same, on the whole globe even the most insignificant place was
not unknown to him, and often, when making a new acquaint-
ance from a strange place he seemed better informed with respect
to it than the person who came from there, so that he often
would be asked with surprise whether he had traveled there.
As a father he lived most happily, and never desired to leave
the circle of his beloved ones to seek happiness outside which
he could not find at home. And if he could not refuse to join
in some amusement outside, he would seek to shorten his part in
it as much as possible, so as to return as soon as possible to his
family circle. He was a man of honor, a noble man, a true
friend, whose active sympathy in every relation of life could be
counted on. This I can testify from my experience, with heart-
felt thanks, since for almost twenty years he faithfully stood by
my side as a sympathetic physician in the severe diseases which
visited myself and my family. He knew no enmity, he bore no
*It may be mentioned that Hahnemann did not treat Hartmann, the
author of the above sketch, very well at this time. He came also under
the ban that the stern old man had cast on his followers and disciples.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
95
grudge against the malignant persons who had injured him, he
often would defend a man who had injured him, against others.
I might mention that he had several times quite seriously fixed
the time of his death on some definite day, and thereby dis-
quieted his family and his friends, and he never wearied in
fixing on some new date. This of course had, as a consequence,
that we jokingly teased him about it, nor did we take it seriously
when he assured us at the approach of the cholera with even
greater impressiveness than before, that he would succumb to
cholera if seized with it. On account of this he was very
cautious as to what he ate, and would commit no dietary blunder.
On the 22d of September he visited me cheerful and joyous.
I therefore apprehended nothing serious when I heard next day
that he had diarrhoea several times, but that he was in good
humor nevertheless, though as a precaution he had not left his
bed. On the 24th, at half-past four A. M., vomiting had ap-
peared, soon an icy coldness and lack of pulse were added, yet
he complained of but little pain. In the first hour of the after-
noon all hope for his recovery had vanished, and in the evening
after 6 o'clock he had quietly passed away. He has left many
friends, and those who were acquainted with him more closely
will keep his memory faithfully within their hearts. Sit ei
terra levis.
HARTMANN.
WRITINGS.
De febre inflammatoria quæstiones. Lipsiæ. Schonemann's Disput.
Handl. 1812.
De schola Lipsiensium clinica. Lipsiæ. 1812.
Cholera, Homoeopathy and the Medical Authorities clash. Facts pub-
lished for the benefit of the Homœopathic Endowment Fund by the Local
Society of Homeopathic Physicians in Leipsic. Leipsic. Schumann.
1831.
Contribution to the History of Homœopathy. From Documents. From
Notes by Dr. M. Muller. Leipsic. Reclam. 1831. (From the Archiv.
X. I.)
Justification of Dr. Jos. v. Bakody in Raab concerning the groundless
attack by two physicians of that place, with judicial proofs. Leipsic:
Kunzel. 1832.
C. MICHLER, A. F. MOECKEL, ROSAZEWSKY,
SCHONIKE, SCHRODER, and URBAN.
No data obtainable.
96
STORY OF THE PROVERS
CAJETAN NENNING.
It has been impossible to discover when and where Nenning
was born, or many facts about him. His name is so often
quoted and so much doubt has been expressed in regard to the
verity of the great number of symptoms furnished by him to
the Materia Medica that it is of interest to present all the facts
obtainable.
In the symptomatology of Dulcamara Hahnemann incorporated
certain symptoms taken from the Materia Medica of Hartlaub
and Trinks, and signed "Ng." He also mentions in the Chronic
Diseases (Ng.) as a prover of Alumina, Ammonium carb.,
Ammon. mur., Causticum, Dulcamara, Graphites, Kali carb.,
Magn. carb., Magn. mur., Mur. acid, Natrum carb., Nitrum,
Sarsaparilla, Silicea, Sulphur, Sulph. acid., Zincum. By "Ng.”
the provings of Cajetan Nenning are designated.
Nenning was a very voluminous collector of provings, although
it is said he never observed a single symptom upon his own
person. A writer in the British Journal* gives the following
table of his contributions to the Materia Medica between the
years 1828 and 1836, published in Hartlaub and Trinks's "An-
nalen" and "Materia Medica," and Stapf's "Additions to the
Materia Medica."
Æthusa cynapium,
Agaricus muscarius,
Alumina,
Baryta carb.,
·
Cantharis,
Causticum,
Castoreum,
Chelidonium,
Dulcamara,
Graphites,
Helleborus niger,
Indigo,
Kali carb.,
Kali hyd.,
Laurocerasus,
Magnesia mur.,
Magnesia sulph.,
Millefolium,
·
•
•
•
+
Natrum carb.,
Natrum sulph.,
•
•
Symptoms.
143
26
662
•
•
•
•
•
·
309
489
•
173
276
138
51
178
77
266
365
303
· 739
646
355
· 77
594
340
Ammonium carb.,
Ammonium mur.,
Bovista,
Niccolum,
Nitrum,
Oleum animale,
Phellandrium,
Phosphorus,
Plumbum acet.,
Sabadilla,
Sarsaparilla,
Senega,
Strontiana,
Sulphuric acid,
Tinctura acris,
·
Tongo,
Tabacum,
Zincum,
·
•
+ Total,
•
·
·
•
•
Symptoms
465
448
266
446
· 359
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
525
369
·
531
287
18
347
19
206
104
456
II,447
249
285
185
* Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxi., p. 470.
† See Dr. Roth on Revision of the "Mat. Medica," Hon. Vierteljahe-
schrift, Vol. xiv., p. 151.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
97
Nenning, in 1833, in the Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung,
himself states that none of this vast array of symptoms was
observed in his own person. Hahnemann, although he incor-
porated certain of these symptoms in the "Materia Medica
Pura" and the "Chronic Diseases," yet himself doubted their
accuracy. In a footnote to Alumina in the second edition of the
"Chronic Diseases," he says: By these two letters merely (a
real anonymity) Hartlaub and Dr. Trinks designate a man who
furnished the greatest number of symptoms in the provings of
medicines for their "Annalen," which often appear in very
negligent, diffuse and vague expressions. I could merely ex-
tract therefrom what was useful under the supposition that he
has acted as an honest, careful man. But it is hardly to be
excused that the homoeopathic public should be expected to give
absolute credit to an unknown person designated merely with
the two letters Ng in this most important and serious
work, which requires circumspection, acuteness of the senses,
subtle gift of observation and strict criticism of one's own sensa-
tions and perceptions, as well as a correct choice of expression
in prosecuting a work which is an indispensable foundation of
our healing art.
In Mr. L. H. Tafel's translation of the "Chronic Diseases
(p. 188), Dr. Hughes makes the following comments on Hahne-
mann's footnote: * This note of Hahnemann has led to a good
deal of mistrust of the symptoms of the anonymous observer in
question, which has been increased by their excessive number,
Dr. Roth having counted more than eleven thousand in the sev-
eral contributions to our "Materia Medica" made by him be-
tween 1828 and 1836. The same critic also says that he has
found great sameness in his pathogenetic lists. Dr. Hering,
however (Allen's Encyclopædia, v. 3., 640), has explained why
"Ng."-the surgeon Cajetan Nenning-had to keep his name
concealed, and has shown that his symptoms were obtained by
genuine provings on healthy subjects. Nenning himself has
given in the Allg. hom. Zeitung, for 1839, a similar account to
explain the copiousness of his symptom lists.
In the preface to Magnesium carb., in the second edition of the
*This edition of the "Chronic Diseases" was translated by Mr. L. H.
Tafel, of Urbana, O., edited by Dr. Pemberton Dudley, while Dr. Richard
Hughes, of England, furnished the footnotes. It was published by
Boericke & Tafel in 1896.
98
STORY OF THE PROVERS
"Chronic Diseases," Hahnemann says: The symptoms indi-
cated by this sign, "Hb. u. Tr.," are from the "Reine Arznei-
mittellehre" of Drs. Hartlaub and Trinks, but not marked by
the letters of the original prover; but they quite bear the stamp
of the ever ready symptom manufactory of "Ng."
Hahnemann, in a note to Par. 143 of the fifth edition of the
"Organon," says:* Latterly it has been the habit to entrust the
proving of medicines to unknown persons at a distance, who
were paid for their work, and the information so obtained was
printed. But, by so doing, the work which is of all others the
most important, which is to form the basis of the only true heal-
ing art, and which demands the greatest moral certainty and
trustworthiness, seems to me, I regret to say, to become doubt-
ful and uncertain in its results, and to lose all value.
When the first volume of Allen's Encyclopaedia of Materia
Medica" was published, in 1874, this footnote by Hahnemann
just quoted was placed in the proving of Alumina (Vol. I., p.
206). This aroused Dr. Constantine Hering, and in Vol. III. of
the Allen (p. 640), under corrections, the following letter from
him is printed: The greatest error in your Volume I. is the
translation and reprint of one of the greatest blunders Hahne-
mann ever made; footnote, page 206.
It would be a long story
to tell how Hahnemann could have been talked into such a hor-
ribility as this note. Only the impudent, malicious and igno-
rant opposition of Trinks can excuse it a little. What Hahne-
mann says in his letter to Stapf explains the indignation he felt
against the horribly ignorant and devilishly malicious Trinks.
Hartlaub was only his tool. All that Hahnemann says about
the anonymousness is nonsense. There was no such thing.
"Ng." was a surgeon near Budweis, in Bohemia, a candid,
upright, well-meaning man, not very learned; his name was
Nenning, and everybody knew it. According to the laws of his
country he had no right to practice except as a surgeon. A
lameness of the right arm disabled him from folloring his call-
ing. His wife commenced a school and instructed girls in milli-
nery; she supported the family by this. Nenning became
acquainted with Homoeopathy, and soon was an ardent admirer.
He had the grand idea to aid the cause by making provings on
the girls in his wife's millinery shop. He succeeded in persuad-
* Dudgeon's translation of "Organon," London, 1893, pp. 129, 274.
""
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
99
ing them. Unluckily enough, he came in connection with
Hartlaub in Leipsic, instead of with Hahnemann himself. All
Austrians were forbidden by a strict law to send anything out-
side of Austria to be printed; hence not only Nenning, but all
other Austrians, appeared in our literature with only initials,
Watzke as G-, etc. This shocking law was abolished, but
Hartlaub continued his N-g. In Roth's Razzia" a most
infamous use was made of this note by Hahnemann.
Since 1828, when Nenning first appeared in public with
Plumbum, a medicine in which I was personally interested, as
having been the first prover of it, "Ng." was studied with the
greatest attention by myself, and in forty-eight years nothing.
but corroborations and confirmations have been experienced.
My proposition to you is to cut this sham of our Master out of
the plate.
Dr. Richard Hughes, in "Extra-Hahnemannian Sources of the
Homœopathic Materia Medica," also tells the above story and
says:* Nenning has himself given in the Allgemeine homoo-
pathische Zeitung for June 10, 1839 (Vol. xv., p. 261), a similar
account, to explain the number of his symptoms. If I have, per-
chance, so he writes, made too many provings, for it is remarked
that I have furnished too many symptoms, that should, in my opin-
ion, deserve sympathy rather than ridicule. The exhortation of
Hahnemann not only to enjoy, but to put our hand to the work
animated my zeal, and the active support of Hartlaub rendered
it possible for me to do that which perhaps strikes Hahnemann
as surprising. A number of persons, partly related to me, and
partly friendly, were gathered together by me, and, in considera-
tion of board and payment, made experiments. Along with
them were also my two daughters, and with complete reliance on
the honesty of them all I gave one medicine to one, and another
to another, writing down all that they reported It was a matter
of conscience on my part also not to omit the smallest particular;
and that thereby frequent repetitions have arisen I grant readily,
but I thought that just in that way the sphere of action of the
medicine could be best recognized. If I failed in this it was the
general failing of the provers at that time, and it is, therefore, not
fair to judge me by the rules of the present provers. If I also
*Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxv., p. 107. Also, "Sources of the Homœo-
pathic Materia Medica." London. Turner. 1877.
UsrM
100
STORY OF THE PROVERS
received a proportionate support, still no one has a right to be-
lieve that I invented or multiplied symptoms in order to obtain
a larger honorarium. Nothing but perfection and the exhorta-
tions of Hahnemann were my inducement; if I did not attain
that, at any rate I cannot reproach myself with dishonesty. It
is true that lately Dr. Hromada has had it cast up to him that
he used salaried provers, as I did; but I still consider this the
best way to get good results, provided you can trust the honesty
of the individuals. Few persons can be found who will stand
such trials a second time; and if you follow strictly all the rules
and regulations prescribed in later times nothing good will be
gained for a long time.
A
Hughes says that Roth counted more than eleven thousand
symptoms of Nenning in the contributions to the Materia Medica
between 1828 and 1830, and that the compilers of the "Cypher
Repertory" felt themselves warranted in omitting Ng.'s symptoms
altogether.
Hughes continues: It seems, then, that Nenning's symptoms
were obtained in the true way, viz., by provings on the healthy
body; but that the payment of the provers and the want of dis-
crimination exercised in receiving their reports throw some
share of doubt upon the results. I cannot think, however, that
they warrant their entire rejection. The only thing which such
symptoms need is clinical verification-testing, that is, by being
used as materials wherewith to work the rule similia similibus
curantur. If, when submitted to this test, they (as a rule) prove
trustworthy, we may safely assume them to be genuine and
admissible into the Materia Medica. Now, we have the testi-
mony of three of the most industrious symptomatologists of our
school-Benninghausen, Hering and Wilson-that they have
found no reason to distrust Nenning's symptoms, and to use
them as satisfactorily as those of other observers. No statement
to the reverse of this has come from the other side; so that we
may accept Nenning's contributions as at least provisionally
established to be good and sound additions to our pathogenetic
material.
Dr. Roth, of Paris, doubted Nenning, and said:* The symp-
toms of Cajetan Nenning ought on no account to remain in the
* Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxi., p. 468.
M«U
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
IOI
Materia Medica. The prover has himself admitted that his
provings were not conducted with due caution.
In 1862 Mr. David Wilson began in the Monthly Homœopathic
Review to pick to pieces Dr. C. J. Hempel's translation of the
"Chronic Diseases," and here this disputed question as to the
reliability of Nenning again appears.*
Then in Vol. VIII. of the Review Drs. Wilson and Dudgeon
published letters polemical on accuracy in translation.
In April, 1864, Dr. Wilson says of Dr. Dudgeon: † It will be
seen that he persists in writing sneeringly of Dr. Nenning,
because it suits Dr. D-'s purpose to sacrifice the truth. He
ignores what Dr. Bath said of this prover in the Allgemeine hom.
Zeitung, 1839, and to which Dr. Carroll Dunham has called
attention in the October number of the American Homœopathic
Review (Vol. IV., p. 186).
The statement of Dr. Dunham, which Dr. Wilson also quotes,
is: Hahnemann's note to Alumina was printed before this pub-
lication of Nenning. It is not surprising that Hahnemann
scrutinized with unusual caution symptoms furnished by an at
that time anonymous prover. When, however, he says: I was
only able to extract what seemed useful from them, it would
appear only fair to infer that after this unusually sharp scrutiny
Hahnemann had admitted as valid and trustworthy those symp-
toms by "Ng." which he proceeds to include in the "Chron-
ischen Krankheiten." We incline, therefore, to accept those
symptoms as coming with the endorsement of Hahnemann, in
addition to the signature of Nenning.
Dunham gives a resumé of the discussion in the British jour-
nals, quoting from Hahnemann, and then continues: The British
journalist goes on to say that "Ng." contributed such a host of
symptoms to the "Chronic Diseases" that if he proved them all
himself he must have suffered the tortures of the damned in
proving them.|| He intimates that "Ng." declined to reveal
himself, possibly from a consciousness that he was a "bogus
prover," and wishes that every one of his symptoms were elimi-
*The discussion regarding Hempel's translations may be found in
Monthly Hom. Review, Vols. vi., vii., viii.; Brit. Jour. Hom. Vols. xx.,
xxi.; Am. Hom. Review, Vols. iii., iv., July, Aug., Sept., 1862
† Monthly Hom. Review, Vol. viii., p. 241.
Am. Hom. Review, Vol. iv., p. 187.
|| "Love's Labor Lost." Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xx., p. 689.
102
STORY OF THE PROVERS
>
nated from our Materia Medica. He finally thanks Dr. Hempel,
as already stated, for his "rough and imperfect winnowing" of
the Materia Medica, and cannot see "the use of restoring such
rubbish." This view of the case, while admitting Dr. Hempel's
utter faithlessness as a "Translator," presents him to us as
deserving of thanks in the character of an "Expurgator."
Therefore, Mr. Wilson's question; "How far is Dr. Hempel to
be trusted as a ‘Translator' of Hahnemann's works,” will still
be pertinent if modified as follows: "How far is Dr. Hempel to
be trusted as an Expurgator of Hahnemann's works?"
Dr. Dunham continues: The voluminous works of Hahnemann
may be supposed to contain errors like all other human produc-
tions. The function of the faithful and acccurate and judicious
expurgator is assuredly an honorable one, and his labors should
receive the hearty thanks of the profession. But how if the
alleged expurgator be unfaithful and inaccurate to the last
degree?
Dr. Hempel never assumes the position of expurgator. He
claims only to give a translation in perfect accordance with the
original. Mr. Wilson states, and the British Journal admits, that
he did no such thing. The British Journal makes the expurga-
torial assumption for him, and bases it on the statement that the
defects of the translation are all comprised in his omissions of
the symptoms of "Ng." which the British Journal says are
"rubbish.'
""
Now "Ng." did not decline to reveal himself. On the con-
trary, he published, says Dr. Bath, over his own name, Cajetan
Nenning, his method of proving and of collecting symptoms
from other provers, in a statement which is so clear, straight-
forward and manly as to convince the reader at least of his entire
honesty and good faith.
Now for the "tortures of the damned.' 'Ng.'s" symptoms
must be good for nothing because they are so numerous! Thus.
argues the British Journal. Does the same reasoning hold good
with reference to Hahnemann who, in his ten volumes of prov-
ings, has given us ten times as many symptoms as Nenning?
The simple fact is that both Hahnemann and Nenning give as
their own not only symptoms observed on themselves, but also
symptoms observed on other persons who proved drugs under
their personal supervision.
""
(C
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
103
Dr. Dunham then proceeds to show where Hempel's omissions
are not correct, and gives the percentage of the symptoms of
several provers that are omitted by Hempel, concluding as fol-
lows: The author of "Love's Labor Lost" says: We cannot help
feeling distrustful about his (Nenning's) recorded symptoms,
and we only wish that they were every one eliminated from our
Materia Medica," for we are convinced that they do not add
to its utility, and we are much inclined to think that the assumed
initials "Ng." should be read "No go.”
ERNST FERDINAND RUECKERT:
Dr. Rueckert's brother thus writes of him: * I have been re-
quested by several parties to write something to serve as a
memorial of my deceased brother, who left this world six years
ago; and since no one else has been found who would wreathe
with laurels the grave of this roving wanderer I undertake this
solemn duty. Nevertheless I do this with a heavy heart, well
convinced that the biography of a physician who has become
well known, even to the more general public through his numer-
ous writings, would have been more fittingly composed by the
pen of a person not related to him, than by his own younger
brother.
I must, therefore, in advance, ask the indulgence of the
reader if in some things I may not appear sufficiently impartial,
or too diffuse, and if I mention also the failings of my brother
as a man, contrasting these with his goodness :
Our eldest brother, Ernst Ferdinand Rueckert, was born in
Grosshennersdorf, near Herrnhut, March 3, 1795; he was in-
structed there till the year 1807 by my father himself, who was
pastor. He learned very easily, so that he also made good
progress in the high school at Niesky, near Goerlitz, where he
remained until the year 1812. He had an especial facility for
learning the languages and quickly advanced in his classes.
His intention was originally to study theology; be therefore
entered, on the 24th of June, 1812, into the school of the gymna-
sium at Zittau, and received on the 27th of September of
the same year, in his eighteenth year, the Testimonium maturi-
* All. hom. Zeitung., Vol. xxxviii., p. 81. (Nov. 26, 1849).
I04
STORY OF THE PROVERS
tatis, and went to the University of Leipsic. Now the time had
come when the leading traits of his character could show them-
selves freely and openly. His fellow-students who are still alive
may testify whether I judge rightly of my brother when I say
that he was extremely good-natured, very cheerful in company,
and entertaining by his witty notions. Whatever he undertook
he seized with a mighty zeal, aye, he was enthusiastic and de-
picted its consequences in the future in the brightest colors; but
he was lacking in endurance and firmness, therefore he could
easily be turned away again from his first intentions and be led
off to others. This was his misfortune and it followed him
through life. In good company and under a good leader he was
a most solid man, while giddy company easily led him astray.
The beginning of his unsteady life was made already in 1813,
when he renounced his first intention of studying theology and
changed to medicine. After the great battle of Leipsic he
effected the change and continued his studies until 1816.
He was then already acquainted with Homœopathy, and he
was one of the first of Hahnemann's pupils, together with Dr.
Hartmann and Dr. Hornburg. We find his name as prover of
several remedies: Dulcamara, Aconite, Rheum, Rhus, Bryonia,
Hellebore, Digitalis. From 1816 to 1817 he visited the Medico-
Chirurgical Academy in Dresden. He received his doctor's
diploma at Jena in 1819, and had his Colloquium upon the same
year in Leipsic, as he had chosen Grimma for his resting place
in order to begin there his practical career. But his unsteady
spirit drove him away from there in a short time. He was lack-
ing in the firmness necessary to overcome the first obstacles
which every practical physician must meet when he commences,
and already the following year he thought that he recognized
in the town of Mutchen the goal of his sanguine hope, and he
exchanged this little town again in 1819 for Bernstadt in the
Upper Lausitz. He soon found more to do here than in the two
former places, and several years after he had left Bernstadt I still
heard families, where he had made successful cures, speak of
him gratefully.
**
But misfortune here also followed the poor man. Soon after
his arrival another physician, an Allopath, settled in the little
town, who, although not hostile to him, nevertheless by his
winning personality soon gained the whole practice.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
105
Highly discouraged by this the vacillating man thought to
cheer himself by company, and then lost the proper position, so
that he found it best to change to Loabau. But even here he
was not yet destined to find a lasting position, since his relations
with his colleagues made his rising in practice difficult, so that
he determined to give up the medical career entirely and to
endeavor to make his living as a teacher.
He soon succeeded in finding a position as a tutor in a noble
family in Livonia, and he cheerfully left his native land in 1822
and arrived, after a stormy voyage, without having become sea-
sick, in Riga. The happiest time of his life he now spent in
Livonia, until the year 1829. Living part of the time as a tutor
in various families, the other part in educational institutions,
he was esteemed and loved by all.
The study of the languages, which had always been so easy
to him, was revived and cultivated now in his leisure
hours, and he had soon advanced enough to be able to translate
historical works from Russian into German.
But not valuing his success sufficiently he desired to see again
his native land, and he arrived in Hahnemann's house in
Coethen soon after his jubilee celebration of August, 1829, and
was received kindly by Hahnemann and worked for him till
Easter, 1830. Introduced anew to the art by the master, my
brother began practicing as a physician a second time, first in
Bautzen, where he remained a year; then he moved to Camenz,
where he remained several years; lastly he found his asylum at
Konigsbrueck under the particular protection of the Count von
Hohenthal.
His domestic life was also rich in experience during these last
years, as he married twice, having lost his first wife by death.
He bore patiently every severe affliction, owing partly to his
cheerful temperament which enabled him soon again to see the
rays of the sun even through the thickest fog, and partly owing
to his firm faith in Christ of which the germ had been laid even
in his tender youth. Finally as a weary wanderer after a jour-
ney full of thorns and thistles, after a lung disease had first un-
dermined his strong health, he fell asleep in the eternal rest in
the year 1843 at the age of forty-eight years.
-
With great zeal, industry and perseverence he made use of all
his leisure time during his last twelve years to be active for Homo-
106
STORY OF THE PROVERS
opathy, and especially to facilitate as far as possible the difficult
task of finding the proper remedy in any given case. The most
excellent of his works which even at this day has its classic
value, and will retain it, is the "Systematic Presentation of
all the Homœopathic Medicines known to this Time," a work
which in a short time (1835) had its second edition, and is even
at this day found in the hands of innumerable physicians, and
will continue to be so, for the symptoms are there given just as
they are found in the provings. Would that such names as
Atriplex could not be found in it, as they remind us of an author
*
who by his fabrications will remain a disgrace in the history of
Homœopathy.
A second, larger work, which also in token of its usefulness
rose to a second edition, is: "A Brief Survey of the Effects of
Homœopathic Medicines on the Human Body," in which also,
unfortunately, some sham remedies are found; this appeared in
1834.
The third and last larger work is: "Sketch of a Future Special
Homœopathic Therapy," 1837, a work which in its time filled a
gap not unimportant in Homoeopathic literature, although its
tendency was questioned by Griesselich, who has also departed
to his eternal home.
Many an observation might indeed yet be struck out in this
work, and in my opinion, at least, the effect of the remedies
might be given a little more in detail, even though briefly.
During the twelve years that have passed since the appearance
of the work the published cures wrought by means of the
various remedies have been greatly augmented, and I myself
have for some time been occupied in collating them and at the
request of several of my colleagues, as has been stated in the
previous volume of the Allgemeine Zeitung, I shall as a trial
make a beginning in printing some parts of this work arranged
in a somewhat different order.
The fourth, smaller work from his pen is: "The Effects of
Homœopathic Medicines under Certain Conditions represented
in a Tabular Manner," 1833. The fifth work is "Cutaneous
Diseases." The sixth work is a translation from the English of
Jacob James' "Practical Experiences in the Domain of Homo-
* By Atriplex the writer means Fickel a rascal of whom mention will be
made further on. [ED.]
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
107
opathy," 1842. The seventh, "Knowledge and Cure of the
most. Important Diseases of the Horse, etc., Description of the
Diseases of Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, Goats and Dogs." The
eighth, "Description of the most frequent Herbs and Ferns,
both the wild and the cultivated, so also of some official Mosses
and Mushrooms of Saxony, etc., with Statement of their injuri-
ous Properties."
Without giving any further judgment as to these works, we
may see from them that he was willing to do everything possible
to assist in the development of our art and science. The best
reward of these labors is when many a patient through the easier
finding of the fitting remedy has found relief from his sufferings.
TH. J. RUECKERT,
Practising Physician in Herrnhut.
Hartmann says of him: * Rueckert was an original man, but
unsteady in all he undertook, wavering, with no perseverence,
and yet very well informed; he rather skimmed over the surface
of the sciences, and never attained any profound knowledge of
them because he the more easily overcame the difficulties which
the entrance to any science presents than the slighter ones
that he met in his further progress; add to this the fluctuation
which prevailed throughout his whole life, and which he might
earlier in life have gotten rid of, perhaps, under the guidance of
a more serious and steadfast nature, and we can understand his
extensive but superficial knowledge.
But notwithstanding all this inconstancy, one could not but
love him for his captivating manner, his sparkling wit, his cour-
teousness. On the other hand, it was difficult to gain his friend-
ship, since he was ever distrustful of others, from which dis-
trust he never could free himself, even when he was fully con-
vinced of its unreasonableness. He was a kind of necromancer;
he interested himself much in supernatural things and would sit
by the hour together staring at a speck, and quite forgetting
everything about him; hence he preferred to be alone and hired
a summer house to which he might resort for solitude. Here I
have often seen him, for my windows were directly opposite to
his residence and I often worked at night, walking backwards
* N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 188. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 242.
Kleinert's "Geschichte der Homoopathie."
108
STORY OF THE PROVERS
and forwards, in summer and winter, by day and by night, with
huge strides; frequently he delivered philosophic discourses
from his window to the cats, who paid their respects to him in
his garden.
Rueckert was quick at seizing anything, but the ties of order
and regularity sat heavily upon him; he soon flagged in his
good resolutions, and carelessly threw away what he had just
undertaken, to seek some new phantom. It was thus with his
drug provings; the Materia Medica Pura owes him but little,
and the symptoms that are marked-Rueckert-were not re-
ported by him, but by a namesake of whom my recollection is
but indistinct.
Lorbacher says: *
Ernst F. Rueckert, whom Hart-
mann confounds with a younger brother, co-operated in proving
medicines under Hahnemann's direction. He published some
original works on Homœopathy, and along with Lux may be
considered the founder of Homoeopathic veterinary medicine.
WRITINGS.
Systematic Presentation of all Homœopathic Medicines known hitherto,
including the Antipsorics in their pure Effects on the Healthy Human
Body. 3 Vols. Leipsic: L. Schumann. 1831 33. 2d Edition, 2 Vols.
Leipsic. 1835.
Brief Survey of the Effects of Homœopathic Medicines on the Healthy
Human Body, with Hints as to their use in various Forms of Disease.
Vols. Leipsic: Schumann. 1831-32. 2d edition. Leipsic: Melzer 1834-35.
The effects of Homœopathic Medicines under certain conditions, pre-
sented in Tabular Form. Leipsic. Melzer. 1833.
2
Cutaneous Diseases, or Systematic Presentation of the various Erup-
tions. Elaborated in the Homœopathic Manner. Leipsic: Melzer. 1833.
Principles of a Future Special Homœopathic Therapie. Leipsic: Andra.
1837. With new title. Leipsic: Hunger. 1841. Trans. by Hempel.
New York: Radde. 1846.
Diagnosis and Care of the Most Important Diseases of the Horse,
elaborated according to Homoeopathic Principles, for Agriculturists.
Meissen: Klinkicht. 1839.
Description of the Diseases of Cattle, Sheep, Swine, Goats, and Dogs,
with Directions as to their Cure'according to Allopathic and Homœopathic
Principles. For Agriculturists. Leipsic: Friedlein and Hirsch. 1841.
* Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 457.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
109
LEOPOLD E. RUECKERT.
The only data occurs in the German Gazette: On April 9,
1871, died at Jena, in his seventy-fourth year, the professor of
theology, Leopold E. Rueckert, brother of Dr. Theodore J.
Ruckert.*
FRIEDRICH JACOB RUMMEL.
Dr. Schneider thus writes of this eminent physician:
Friedrich Jacob Rummelt was born April 26th, 1793, in
Lauchstædt, where his father was merchant and deputy postmas-
ter. He received his preparatory training for the university in
the Monastery school at Rossleben and after its completion in
1812 he went to the university to study medicine. After having
pursued these studies for one year at Halle and three-fourths of
a year at Leipsic, he followed (after the battle of Leipsic) the
call to the Saxon people to take part in the war for the libera-
tion of the German fatherland, and he entered among the vol-
unteers, but later on, as there was a lack of military surgeons,
he was employed on account of his qualifications, as company-
surgeon in another detachment of troops.
After the peace at Paris he left the military service, and to
complete his academic studies he went to Goettingen. He
wrote a dissertation De corneitide, and was promoted in 1815 to
Doctor of Medicine and Surgery.
He first practised a year in Lauchstædt, then went to Berlin
to undergo the State examination. Having received his diploma
as physician and obstetrician he settled in 1818 in the city of
Merseburg. He soon found here ample occupation, but was
after a time compelled to give up his obstetrical practice which
he had successfully carried on; this was because he was so much
affected by attending a severe delivery that he was prostrated
for several days after it.
Convincing facts changed our friend Rummel in the year 1825
from an opponent into a friend of Homoeopathy, and he at once
* Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol. 1xxxii., p. 128.
† Allg.hom Zeitung, Vol. xlix., p. 9.
IIO
STORY OF THE PROVERS
devoted himself to it with the warmth and zeal of a man true to
his calling and free from prejudice, seeking but for light and
truth.
As early as 1826 he sent an article to Hufeland's Journal:
"Observations concerning Hahnemann's system." (5 pt., pp. 43-
74.). Soon after this he wrote a larger work which is more
generally known: "Homoeopathy with its Lights and Shadows."
During this literary activity he also more and more perfected
himself in the practice of Homoeopathy, for which he gained an
ever increasing number of adherents.
Through the intervention of Stapf he now came into closer
relations with the founder of Homoeopathy and became a mem-
ber of the small circle of younger physicians who with Hahne-
mann, and under his direction, formed the first Prover's Union,
to which we all owe the pure Materia Medica, so replete with
blessings to all futurity.
In the year 1832 he in conjunction with Gross and Hartmann
founded the Allgemeine homoopathische Zeitung, and furnished
very many excellent articles for it. In June, 1833, he followed
a call to Magdeburg where he was assailed and frequently
maligned and persecuted by the numerous enemies of Homo-
opathy, for his opponent there, in company with Alexander
Simon, of Hamburg, still dared to present the leading stars of the
new school as fools, and to accuse them of the sin of omission, a
medical criminal misdemeanor, when they in cases of disease
which became fatal had not used the prescriptions of the school
of medicine recognized by the State. Nevertheless, Rummel
here continued to gain more and more friends and adherents to
Homœopathy, and also vindication from the assaults of his
opponents, and finally compelled even these to respect him.
Besides he introduced several young men to Homœopathy. In
the year 1834 in conjunction with Muhlenbein he founded the
North German Provincial Homoeopathic Union.
In the years 1836 and 1845 he was president of the Central
Society, and always exercised a beneficent influence through
his friendly fellowship, his practical tact and mediating tolera-
tion.
Besides this he was restlessly at work to secure for Homœo-
pathy the recognition of the State, and he contributed with equal
zeal in the years 1842 and 1843 to secure for Homoeopathic
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
III
physicians in Prussia the right of dispensing their own Homœo-
pathic medicines under milder legal restrictions. In consequence
he was chosen, in Magdeburg, a member of the committee for
examining Homeopathic physicians who desired to acquire the
authority to dispense their own medicines. His honest efforts
were also recognized on the part of the State, as Rummel was
appointed, in 1846, as Royal Sanitary Counselor.
To his energetic efforts the monument of Hahnemann, solemnly
unveiled at Leipsic in 1851, owes its existence, and the last act
showing his love for the common good was the foundation, out
of the surplus of the monies collected for the monument, of a
fund, the interest of which is to be used for premiums for the
prize essays on Pharmacodynamics, which the Central Society
for Homœopathy may from time to time designate.
In his private life Rummel always showed a cheerful, kindly,
lovable character. As domestic physician he was a sympa-
thizing friend, to his patients a careful conscientious physician,
besides he was a highly honored colleague, a faithful husband and
a loving father.
Only one distraction and recreation from the labors of his
calling he loved exceedingly-the enjoyment of the beauties of
nature. He was therefore accustomed to make a journey every
year. The strokes of fate he bore with manly resignation. Even
the total deafness from which he suffered, from the year 1846 till
his death, was unable to disturb the kindliness and cheerfulness
of his spirit. Though it compelled him to relinquish by far the
greater part of his practice, and to concentrate his active mind
more upon himself.
In the year 1832 the cholera in Merseburg fell in all its malig-
nancy almost the first upon his own family, so that he lost from
it his wife and a daughter, and was himself brought to death's
door by the same disease; but he recovered with the assistance
of Dr. Heine, who was paying him a visit.
In the fall of 1846 he was seized with a typhus fever with
rheumatic troubles, which again brought him near the grave
and completed the loss of his hearing.
On the 28th of September at last his final illness occurred. At
his return from business calls in the forenoon, after having been
previously quite well, he was suddenly seized with weakness and
fatigue, and in the evening he frequently felt a slight chill. At
II2
STORY OF THE PROVERS
night there came vivid dreams and dryness of the tongue. On
the 29th there was a more decided feeling of illness with inclina-
tion to diarrhoea and thickly coated tongue. Still by using a
carriage he made some professional calls. But from the 30th of
September the patient remained in his room and prescribed for
himself what seemed suitable. * It was not before October 4th
that I was requested to visit him. This was the first time since
I had been located here with him, for he had only suffered in
1846 a few times from a swollen cheek owing to toothache.
I found a violent typhus gastric fever (tongue coated thickly
and tenaciously, with tendency to small diarrhoeic stools, lassi-
tude, languor, irritability, decrepitude, restless nights, with
lively talking in his sleep, and at night so great dryness of the
tongue that the patient compared it to an old highway of stones
on which not a drop of water could stay, with normal pulse.
During the day more drowsiness, but otherwise the same state.
On the 6th of October the patient had risen as usual in the
morning and had taken a cup of tea with toast, when he was
suddenly (about seven o'clock) seized with violent colic and
with two profuse, very fetid, diarrhoeic stools and a violent chill
which drove him to bed. As soon as I called I gave him Vera-
trum. The pains in the abdomen were soon relieved, nor did
the diarrhoea recur soon, and the chill was followed by heat,
which soon brought quite a copious sweat. The pulse now
became feverish and was at times intermittent (which was also
said to have been the case at the beginning of the illness). The
patient who, however, seemed to retain his cheerfulness, at times
talked deliriously and once there was singultus.
Under these circumstances I invited my colleague Rath, who
had also visited the patient, to visit him with me. The disease
had enormously developed up to October 9th, when also Fielitz,
from Brunswick, had hastened to a consultation. The use of
Arsenicum which had followed upon Veratrum was of no avail in
checking the disease; at six P. M. the traces of incipient paralysis
of the lungs and skin were unmistakably present. The stupe-
faction of the brain had in the meantime reached so high a
degree that the patient never uttered any foreboding about his
condition, and passed away in the night between the 9th and
10th of October at 2:30 A. M., without suffering. Numberless
* A foot note states that the Drs. Hartmann and Haubold were also with
him.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
113
are the tears of love, friendship and gratefulness that are shed
for this noble man.
H. G. SCHNEIDER.
Dr. Gustav Puhlmann in his History of Homoeopathy in Ger-
many thus mentions Rummel: * Dr. Frederick Jacob Rummel
was born April 26, 1793, and died October 10, 1854. In 1826,
after seven years of Allopathic practice. he adopted Homœopathy
and joined the Provers' Society. In 1833, while co editor of the
Allgemeine hom. Zeitung, he removed to Magdeburg, and there
worked unceasingly for the recognition of Homoeopathy by the
government. He was particularly assisted in 1842 and 1843 by
the fact that the Prussian physicians were under milder legal
restrictions and were allowed to dispense Homœopathic medi-
cines. By his efforts Hahnemann's monument was erected at
Leipsic in 1851, and he was also the originator of the "Hahne-
mann Fund" which is controlled by the Central Society, and out
of which prizes are awarded for the best essays on certain subjects
prepared by the members of the society.
Rapou says: In 1824 Rummel practised the old system of
medicine at Merseberg, near Stapf, and such of his patients as
were not cured went to seek aid from the celebrated Homœ-
opathist of Naumburg, from whom many obtained the aid that
the old method had failed to give. Rummel, excellent man, of
great honesty, of true heart and lofty intellect, waited upon
Stapf to study his system of medication; he only yielded step by
step to the clinical results, and in his legitimate doubt evidenced
the same tenacity that had characterized the blind resistance of
others. I cannot refrain from quoting here that which he wrote
a little time after he commenced to practice the new system.
To physicians who, like him, abandoned their ordinary methods
of practice, it will be of interest: "It has been two years since
Homœopathy claimed my attention, a very short time to sur
mount the difficulties it offers to beginners, time sufficient,
nevertheless, to comprehend its principles and to understand its
spirit. Very often I was surprised by my remarkable success in
the treatment of old chronic cases; often I could only relieve or
palliate them; sometimes also I was obliged to return to Allo-
* Trans. "World's Hon. Convention," Vol. ii., p. 28.
+" Histoire de la doctrine medicale homœopathique," Vol. ii., p.p. 405, 419,
**
421.
114
STORY OF THE PROVERS
pathic measures lest my patients grow weary of my futile
attempts. This last event satisfied me that I knew but little of
the resources of my new method. I became convinced that this
system of healing was more direct and more speedy than Allo-
pathy; still there are, I thought, a great class of maladies, the
nervous for example, that do not yield to its powers."
Rummel gives then the various diseases where he found Homo-
opathy most useful.
* * *
.
Rummel, however, soon became an active and faithful follower
of Hahnemann. Rapou continues: Ten years after his en-
trance into Homoeopathy, Rummel was called to Magdeburg,
where he settled; there an action was brought against him for
dispensing remedies, a suit that caused some comment. He
defended with energy that which he considered the right of all
Homœopathists, and a condition of the existence of our school.
He gained the suit and was happy to furnish so favorable a
precedent to those of his confreres who were less active in taking
the matter before the courts. Rummel was now less intimate
with Stapf, his ancient master, but had for some time been asso
ciated with Gross and Hartmann in founding a weekly Homoeo-
pathic journal, the Allegemeine homoopathische Zeitung, a journal
devoted to facts and shunning polemics, so perpetually in our
school in the last dozen years.
Rummel, who is of a very conciliating temperament, and who
readily yields accessory points to those who accept fundamental
truths, was, at the time of my second journey, the object of a
particular proselytism; he had been induced by argument to
make concessions that his experience did not warrant. The
partisans of exact Homoeopathy already mourned the loss of one
of their best defenders.
Rummel wrote letter after letter in the Allegemeine Zeitung in
response to Greisselich, where he clearly expressed his opinions
in regard to the new method, and declined all communication
with the partisans of the pretended specific reform.
Rummel employed the high dilutions. On my last journey I
visited him at Magdeburg. I found him suffering with deafness,
but he understood the aim of my visit and kept me and talked
to me for three hours on practical subjects of interest.
He was
at this time considered in Germany to be the representative of
sound Homœopathic doctrine. He is of the number of Homœo-
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
115
pathic physicians who have examined dilutions under the micro-
scope and found visible molecules of the diluted substance. His
confreres doubting this observation he bade me send to Kallen-
bach for examination two preparations of the 200, one of Arsenic,
the other of Platina. Arrived at Berlin I took them to the
microscopists.
Rapou then gives a very interesting account of these early
microscopic trials of Homœopathic dilutions.
Rummel as is well known was one of the first to rush into the
lists and to deny most emphatically that Hahnemann considered
the "
Organon" the sum total of all the medical sciences and
declared superfluous all other studies. He maintained that a thor-
ough and intimate knowledge of all the various branches and
studies taught by the Allopaths was absolutely necessary to fit
a man for the successful practice of Homœopathy.
"Far re-
moved," he said, "from waging destructive warfare upon science,
Homœopathy is bound to acknowledge nothing but true science,
and to free medicine from the purely conjectural. We do not
propose to ignore the experience of the Allopaths when they
stand the test of reliable experience, but we want to throw light
upon their explanations and hypotheses; we do not propose to
deny the usefulness of their method of cure in any case, but we
are bound to show where physicians interfered with nature in-
stead of studying it after the manner of Hippocrates; where
they rudely suppressed the curative powers of nature, while
prating constantly about guiding these efforts; where they cured
symptomatically, and yet talked of methods suggested by the
first cause; we propose to show them how little common sense is
hidden beneath their high sounding phrases; how true common
sense here is a recognition of the limit set us, enabling us to
recognize the laws, but not the primary causes, of vital
phenomena."'*
In an article published in the British Journal of Homœopathy
(Vol. xxxiii., p. 608) the author thus speaks of Rummel : Rum-
mel of Magdeburg, the first of the converts to Homoeopathy.
Brilliantly gifted with suitable acquirements, penetrated by gen-
uine humanity, and consequent gentleness and kindness, he had
soon recognized the importance and significance of Hahnemann's
doctrine, and at once his life was devoted to the perfecting, de-
*"Kleinert," p. 150. Med. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 307.
116
STORY OF THE PROVERS
·
fending and extension of it. As a watchful warrior he stood
unwearied at his post to repel the attacks of the enemy with
sharp weapons, and never allowed himself to swerve in the
strife from the various personal attacks and annoyance, which he
had to endure. It is especially due to him that Homœopathy
found legitimate recognition and protection in Prussia. He
took as lively a part in all controversial questions within as he did
in the battle without, and sought to decide them.
One of the most interesting passages in this category is his
discussion with one who was in all respects his equal, and who
represented the South German party, viz: Greisselich of Carls-
ruhe, when he sought to shake the foundations of Homœopathy.
The course of this controversy carried on with so much spirit
and good sense will give great pleasure to every reader, and it
were to be wished that it should serve as a model in all scien-
tific disputes. His work, "The Bright and Dark Sides of
Homœopathy," is of special importance for the emancipation of
Homœopathy from the person of Hahnemann, as well as a
series of articles in the Archiv and the Allg. hom. Zeitung, which
he, in conjunction with Hartmann and Gross, established, and
which he continued to edit till his death.
The last part of his life was devoted to exertion for the pur-
pose of giving a visible expression to the general respect for
the Master by erecting a monument. With unwearied zeal he
set on foot subscriptions for this purpose, and had the great
happiness during the evening of his life (when he was afflicted
with total deafness) to attend the unveiling of this monument.
He obtained a lasting souvenir in Homœopathy by establishing
out of the surplus of the subscriptions a prize for the physio-
logical proving of a medicine.
In the Allgemeine hom. Zeitung (Vol. xlviii., p. 161) an
obituary notice appears on the first page of the number. Died
of typhus fever in the early morning hours of October 10, 1854,
Dr. Rummel, of Magdeburg, on the first anniversary of the day
on which his friend and fellow-editor, Dr. Hartmann, died.
WRITINGS.
Remarks concerning the Hahnemannian System. (Hufeland's Journal,
1820.)
1831.
Cure of Cholera. Merseburg. Nulandt.
Homœopathy viewed in its Lights and Shadows. Leipsic: Reclam. 1826.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
117
Review of the History of Homœopathy in the Last Decennium, with a
Biography of Muhlenbein. Leipsic: Schumann. 1839-40.
Necessity for the Equalization of Homœopathy with the older Medical
School. A petition of several Homœopathic physicians of Prussia to the
Ministry of Education, etc. For consideration in the intended medical
reform. Magdeburg: Heinrichshofen. 1848. (Reprint from Allg. hom.
Zeitung.)
Concerning the Festival at the Unveiling of Hahnemann's Monument.
Magdeburg: Baensch. 1851.
Co-editor Allgemeine homöopathische Zeitung. 1832-53.
CHRISTIAN AUGUST SCHOENICKE.
"Died May 29, 1865, Christian August Schoenicke in Bautzen,
at the age of sixty nine years. * He was a true follower of
Homœopathy and for many years a member of the Central
Society." This is all the record that can be found in the
journals.
JOHANN ERNST STAPF.
Johann Ernst Stapf was born the 9th of September, 1788, at
Naumburg. His father, Johann Gothofredus Stapf, was first
pastor to the church of Mary Magdalen. His father taught him
the first principles of religion and Latin, Calov's works among
others, in order that he should be prepared to enter, when eleven
years old, the provincial school that flourished at Porta, of which
he always retained pleasant recollections. He had as instructors,
Heimbach and the Very Rev. Illgen, Fleischmann and Schmidt,
as also his grandfather on the mother's side, Prof. Gernhard,
dean of the school. After remaining there three years, his
health failing, he left that school and returned home to his
native city, and here he devoted himself to the study of natural
philosophy and especially chemistry, following the line of study
that his college curriculum was intended to lead him to. Besides
this, he attended the school of nobility at Naumburg, of which
the learned Fuerstenhaupt was Rector and Staffel, Co-rector. In
1806 he entered the Leipzig Uuiversity, of which Eccius was
President. His instructors were: Platner and Clarus, in philos-
ophy; in anatomy, Rosenmüller and Clarus; in physics, Hinden-
* Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. lxx., p. 192.
118
STORY OF THE PROVERS
burg; in botany, Schwaegerchen; in the literary history of
medicine, Kühn; in physiology, Platner and Burdach; in
materia medica, pathology and zoochemistry, Burdach; in
natural history, Ludwig; in chemistry, pharmacy and the art of
dispensing, Eshenbach, whose assistant in chemistry he was for
two years; in obstetrics, Joerg; in the theory and practice of
surgery, Clarus, Gehler and Eckoldt; in general and special
therapeutics, Reinhold; in chronic diseases, Haase; in clinical
medicine the immortal Reinhold, and Müller.
He also traveled in the train of Mme. Elisa von Recke and
Chr. August Tredge, illustrious personages, visiting the
Bohemian baths, Carlsbad, Teplitz, Eger, studying their nature
and diseases, in the summer of 1809, making at the same time
an extensive and illustrious circle of friends; returning he was
generously received by the noble families of Quandt and
Winkler. The 10th of June, 1820, he sustained the examination
for Bachelor, reading his thesis a few days later, entitled "De
eudiometria, novaque aeris benignitatem explorandi methodo,"
and on the 14th of February he sustained the examen vigarosum.
The 6th of April he delivered the thesis "De antagonismo
organico," defending it against everybody, Prof. Kühn being
moderator.*
Stapf was the first to embrace the principles of Hahnemann.
Rapou says: † Stapf is the most ancient disciple of Hahnemann
and more celebrated than the others. He commenced to study
Homœopathy in 1811, and in 1812 practised only with the reme-
dies mentioned in the first volume of the Materia Medica Pura.
He was at the time the only partisan of our method, and he de-
veloped it well.
Stapf had his days of persecution, but for a long time all has
been peaceful with him. He is no longer regarded by his con-
freres as a charlatan, but as a physician with a European reputa-
tion and is given their friendship.
Stapf is a type of the pure Homoeopathist. He disdained
Isopathy. He is the great favourer of the remedy-Lachesis.
*Transl. from: Kühn (Carl Gottlob). [Pr.] febrifugina remedia quæ
cortici peruviano vicaria succedunt, considerantur. [With life of Stapf in-
cluded.] 4to. Lipsiæ, 1810.
+ "Histoire de la Doctrine Medicale Homœopathique," Paris, 1847,
Vol. ii., p. 395.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
119
Hering introduced it into Europe through him. Since 1830 our
brother of Naumburg has prepared it for the German Homœopa-
thists. He also made experiments with it. Stapf, like Hahne-
mann, considers the habits of the patient regarding coffee, wine
and tobacco. The important thing is to remove during medica-
tion the cause of the trouble. He employs olfaction of the
higher dilutions. He commenced his studies upon high poten-
cies the last of 1843 and published the results in June, 1844.
Ameke says:
Hahnemann's oldest admirer and disciple,
Stapf, of Naumburg, met with the same fate. He, too, was
scorned and ridiculed in every possible way like his Master, and
lived for many years as one under a ban among his professional
brethren.
There is no doubt that Rapou's account of the date of Stapf's
conversion is true. We find by letters written him by Hahne-
mann in 1814 that he had been for some time engaged in prov-
ing medicines. Hahnemann says to him in 1814:
"Your good
sentiments towards my self and our art give me much pleasure
and lighten many burdens of my life." He mentions his prov-
ings of certain remedies by name, tells him that he will not over-
tax him, asks him to write for the Allgemeiner Anzeiger in favor
of the Homœopathic system. (Hom. World, Vol. xxiv., p. 206.)
Hartmann in speaking of the original Provers' Union in the
year 1814 says: Stapf was no longer living in Leipsic, but only
came occasionally from Naumburg, where he was settled. The
benevolence beaming from his eyes readily won for him the
hearts of all; a more intimate acquaintance with him soon showed
that in every respect he was far in advance of us in knowledge,
although he had not long been honored with the title of doctor,
and the regard was awarded to him unasked for, which was due
to his extensive scientific acquirements and his natural talents.
as a physician. His conversation was instructive in more re-
spects than one, and he seemed hardly conscious of his super-
iority over others, while he was all the more esteemed on account
of this very modesty. But, as desirous as all were of obtaining
information from him, and ready as he was to gratify those seek-
ing it, yet it was not in the power of one possessed of such a
temperament as his to adhere to any one thing for any great
length of time. To this trait his remarkably quick and accurate
powers of perception might have contributed.
-
I 20
STORY OF THE PROVERS
He was the first pupil of Hahnemann, and was by the master
very dearly beloved. He continued to correspond with him
until the day of his death, and always showed the greatest con-
fidence in him and his medical methods. While with the most
of the rest of his pupils he was at times cold and repellant, there
is nowhere in his writings one word to show that there ever was
the least difference of opinion between Hahnemann and Stapf.
It was to Stapf, in connection with Gross, that Hahnemann first
divulged the secret of the chronic diseases, or psora theory,
calling them to Coethen for the purpose in 1829.
Hartmann says: *Early in January, 1821, I was very much
surprised one morning by the arrival of Dr. Stapf from Naum-
burg, who came to pass his examination (at Berlin) having been
commissioned by the Prussian Minister of War to examine the
so-called Egyptian ophthalmia, prevailing among the Prussian
troops upon the Rhine, and see what could be done with Hom-
œopathic remedies to check its progress. (Hartmann was also
there for the same purpose, examination.)
He improved his opportunity to find me and to propose that I
should accompany him, which I should have done had it not
been that it would have disarranged my plans in coming to
Berlin, for a whole year. It was therefore necessary entirely to
refuse the friendly offer, however painful it night be, and my
refusal was quite as painful to Stapf, since he had no assistance
but that of a novice in Homœopathy-a Russian not yet profi-
cient-Petersen, I think, was his name.
Lorbacher says of Stapf: Endowed with brilliant talents, a
wealth of knowledge, and personal amiability, he was the active
and vivifying element in the small circle, for which his peculiar
and somewhat mercurial vivacity and his sparkling wit emi-
nently qualified him. That both the above named qualifications
remained to him in a high degree in advanced life I had an op-
portunity of becoming personally convinced during a visit I
paid him at Naumburg. The hours I passed in his company
are among the pleasantest recollections of my life. A firm
friendship which nothing could disturb bound him to his Master
*N. W Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 227. All. Hom. Zeit., Vols. xxxviii.,
xxxix.
Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 454.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
121
to the end. By his participation in the provings of medicines
and the great number of accurate and reliable symptoms he con-
tributed, as well as by his Archiv and the number of scientific
articles he furnished towards the foundation and establishment
of the new doctrine, he has raised a lasting monument to his
memory.
Stapf was the prover of thirty-two medicines. He was an
indefatigable worker and was much esteemed by his fellow phy-
sicians for his extended knowledge.
To him is due the honor of originating the first Homoeopathic
journal in the world. In 1822 he became the editor of the
"Archiv für die homöopathische Heilkunst." It was published
at Leipsic, three times a year. He continued its editor until 1839.
It was the organ of the German Homoeopathic Union. He pub-
lished several pamphlets upon the subject of Homœopathy. In
1829 he collected and edited the fugitive writings of Hahne-
mann which he issued under the title : "Kleine medicinische
Schriften, von Samuel Hahnemann. Dresden. Arnold. 1829.
This book was presented to Hahnemann on the occasion of his
fiftieth Doctor-Jubilee, August 10, 1829. He also published a
book known as Stapf's additions to the Materia Medica Pura.
It is a collection of the provings originally published in the
first fifteen volumes of the Archiv.
""
Stapf wrote for the Archiv under the nom du plume of
"Philalethes," and we find Hahnemann in letters to him, asking
him about the articles and also praising them. In the sixth
volume of the Archiv are several essays, and in them he de-
scribes his conversion to Homoeopathy, which was by reading
the Organon soon after its publication.
During the last years of his life he seems to have held him-
self aloof from his former associates on account of ill health.
(6
At the time of the dedication of the monument to Hahnemann
at Leipsic, on August 10, 1851, Stapf was present. Russell in
his Homœopathy in 1851," says: Hereupon the aged Dr.
Stapf, the oldest and dearest friend of Hahnemann, stepped for-
ward and deposited at the foot of the statue a wreath of laurel.
It was touching to see the feeble old man, who seemed to be
deeply moved by the part he had to perform in the ceremony, as
he tottered with uncertain steps to bestow the emblem of im-
mortality on the effigy of the dear friend of his youth and man-
122
STORY OF THE PROVERS
hood, with whom he had borne the scorn and persecution of an
illiberal world, and whom he would ere long rejoin.
He died at Kosen, on the 11th of July, 1860, in his seventy-
first year.* At a meeting of the Leipsic Homœopathic Society,
held July 21, 1860, the President expressed sorrow for the death
of his associate, Stapf, and said: Stapf's meritorious services to
the cause of Homoeopathy are too well known to need particular
mention here. During the last years of his life, as his bodily
powers were no longer sufficient to still co-operate in the prose-
cution of the heritage directly entrusted to him by the Master,
it was his express wish that the feud among Homoeopathists
might cease, and an honorable peace take its place. And so,
may the peace which he so heartily wished when living reign
among us now that he is dead.
Lutze thus chronicles his death:† On the 11th of July, 1860,
there died at Kosen the first and greatest scholar of Hahne-
mann, the Sachsisch Meining'sche Medizinalrath Dr. Ernst
Stapf, in his seventy-first year. Peace to his ashes, and rest.
now his long pilgrimage is over.
WRITINGS.
De antagonismo organico meletemata. Lipsiæ: Hæhm. 1810.
Lucina. Berlin: Maurer. 1818.
Additions to Materia Medica Pura.
Leipsic. (From articles publ.
in first fifteen volumes of Archiv.) Traus. by Hempel. New York:
Radde. 1846.
Editor of Archiv für die homöopathische Heilkunst. Leipsic. 1822-39.
Lesser writings of Hahnemann. Dresden: Arnold. 1829. (Kleine
medicinische Schriften.)
J. CHR. DAV. TEUTHORN.
Teuthorn proved fourteen important medicines, but did not
long continue a disciple of Hahnemann. Hartmann, a fellow-
prover, soon lost sight of him. Lohrbacher says:‡ We may
leave out of consideration Teuthorn and Herrmann, who seem
to have been inconsiderable personages, and of whose appear-
ance as Homœopathic physicians nothing is known.
-
* Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. lxi., pp. 24, 32, 48. Die hom. Volksblätter, Vol.
iii., p. 128. Prager Monatschrift, Vol. viii., p. 127.
Schweikert's Zeitung, September 7, 1831. (Account of portrait painted
by Fräulein Louise Seidler.)
† Fliegende Blätter für Stadt und Land über Homöopathie. A. Lutze. July
10, 1860, p. 112.
Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxxii., p. 453.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
123
CHARLES FRIEDRICH GOTTFRIED TRINKS.
The following biography was written by the old friend of Dr.
Trinks, Dr. Hirschel, soon after his death. It was translated by
Mr. Walter H. Dunn, of Cambridge, England, and published in
the Monthly Homeopathic Review:*
Trinks was born at Eythra, near Leipsic, January 8, 1800 His
father, Daniel Gottfried Trinks, was a miller. At nine years of
age he was sent to the village school. Fortunately for Trinks,
his father's brother, Christian, was connected with this school.
He being a well-educated man, soon perceived that in his nephew
he had a boy of more than ordinary ability entrusted to his care.
Under his direction Trinks made his first acquaintance with
Latin and French, with history, mathematics, and some branches
of natural science. With Greek he scraped an acquaintance
with no other aid than that of a Greek grammar.
In 1814 he was removed to the Grammar School of Merseburg.
Here he worked hard, his industry being rewarded by the love
of his teachers and the generosity of his uncle, through whose
liberality he was enabled to devote himself to the study of
medicine. Unhappily his uncle died shortly after his entrance
at the University of Leipsic. With his death his means of living
became greatly straitened. His mother having always opposed
his desire to become a physician, in the hope of turning him to
more profitable account as a miller, limited his allowance to
some six shillings a week. Trinks was in earnest, and a poor
dinner never yet stood between the man who is really in earnest
in the acquirement of learning and the accomplishment of his
design.
What Trinks wanted in money he made up for in energy.
Before going to Leipsic the surgeon of his native village, Boden-
tein by name, had given him some instruction in the elementary
parts of practical surgery.
With this gentleman, who removed to Leipsic, he resided dur
ing his career at the University, which commenced at Easter,
1817, by his being enrolled a pupil of Beck, a well-known physi-
ologist of that day. He remained at the University until July,
1823, taking his degree of doctor of medicine in the September
following. The title of the thesis defended by him on this oc-
*Monthly Hom. Rev., Vol. xiii., p. 122.
124
STORY OF THE PROVERS
casion was as follows: "De primariis quibusdam in medicamen-
torum viribus recte æstimandis dijudicandisque impedimentis
ac difficultatibus." In this essay the author displayed that love
of therapeutics which he never ceased to feel during the whole
of his career, and to his intimate acquaintance with which may
be traced his success as a practical physician. In this youthful
production he displayed, in correct and classical Latin, the
sources of error in acquiring a knowledge of remedies which
have arisen through theoretical speculation and fallacious ex-
periments. He pointed out the difficulties surrounding the pre-
scription of medicines caused by variations in the susceptibility
and power of reaction of the organism, those presented by age,
sex, constitution, mode of life, and by the combination of drugs
in estimating aright the nature of medicinal action. The in-
fluence of the Homœopathic school upon him is here observable
in his desire for experiment, for obtaining the specific and
dynamic action of drugs, and in the need he sees for a simple
arrangement of remedies.
-
Previously to the time when this thesis was defended he had
been acquainted with some of Hahnemann's colleagues, with
Franz and Hornburg, and subsequently with Hartmann, Lang-
hammer and others. No one, however, had greater influence
over the young student than Hartlaub, senior, who earnestly di-
rected him to the new therapeutic light, their mutual interest in
which formed a bond of union and enduring friendship. Hahne-
mann, whom he frequently saw on the promenade at Leipsic, he
visited first at Coethen in 1825, again in 1832, and once, subse-
quently, with Councillor Wolf.
In 1824 Trinks settled in Dresden. He and Ernst von Brun-
now were the earliest Homœopathists there. His intellectual
clearness, his critical acumen and ability as a physician soon
gave him that prominent position required for the success of the
new school, to the development of which he devoted an energy
and a zeal which could not brook imperfection in anything
towards which they were directed. Notwithstanding his increas-
ing professional engagements he felt dull and lonely in Dresden
and removed to Bremen, only, however, to return to Dresden at
the end of the year 1826. His practice and reputation spread
rapidly and provoked the enmity of his Allopathic neighbors so
far as to lead to his being summoned before the magistrates on
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
125
the charge of dispensing his own medicines, a practice prohibited
in Germany, but long since permitted to Homeopathic phy-
sicians. In December, 1827, he married. In 1830 Trinks at-
tended the first meeting of Homoeopathic physicians held at
Leipsic, and assisted at the foundation of the Central Society of
German Homoeopathic Physicians. In 1832 he made the ac-
quaintance of Griesselich, whose views, coinciding with his own,
induced him to contribute largely to the Hygea.
The only volume of importance published by him was that in
which he was a joint author with Noacks-the well-known
Noack and Trinks' Handbook of Materia Medica; but the essays
he has contributed to the periodical literature of Homœopathic
medicine are numerous.
The two diseases in the study of which he felt most interest
were typhus fever aud cholera. On the former he was engaged
in the preparation of a monograph at the time of his death. In
August, 1867, at a meeting of the Central Society, he excited
the admiration of the members present by his excellent, albeit
extemporary, address on cholera.
In person Trinks was tall and stately; his head handsome and
well developed; his blue eyes expressed the earnestness and
power of penetration which marked his character; while the
roseate hue of his cheeks gave the old man quite a youthful
freshness of countenance which he never lost to the last.
Intellectually he was clear, keen, and critical to a fault. It
was in polemical rather than in original oratory that he excelled.
He was an eminently practical man with but little poetical taste.
He possessed a well stored and a wonderfully retentive memory.
This preference for fact over theory, his love for the real rather
than the ideal, contributed largely to make Trinks what he was,
a thorough physician. Homœopathy he loved, because in its
school alone did he meet with that full development of the
principle of pure observation he felt to be so necessary for the
practice of medicine. A thoroughly independent thinker, it was
not long before he found himself somewhat opposed to Hahne-
mann; and on one occasion he had a warm discussion with
Bonninghausen, when he endeavored to introduce mixed medi-
cines into the practice of Homoeopathy. He most earnestly
opposed everything in the shape of mysticism, everything having
the aspect of humbug with which it was sought to connect
126
STORY OF THE PROVERS
Homœopathy. On these grounds he declared himself an enemy
of the so-called high potencies and a supporter of the lower
dilutions.
Trinks' manner to one seeing him for the first time was often
blunt and even somewhat repulsive. In diagnosis and prognosis
a want of caution in communicating his apprehensions to
patients was often remarked in him. His dietetic rules for those
under his care were very rigid, his prescriptions, carefully
selected, were adhered to with a tenacfty which, though often
regarded as unwise by those around him, was generally re-
warded by satisfactory results.
Books afforded him the only recreation from professional duty
he cared to enjoy. His habits were of the simplest, and their
being so doubtless conduced materially to maintain that degree
of sound health which during forty-four years of arduous pro-
fessional labors knew not the interruption of a single day. His
reputation as a physician, and his services to persons of high
rank, met with suitable acknowledgment in his decoration with
several royal orders and his advancement to the position of
Medical Councillor.
Throughout the North of Germany Trinks was regarded as
the most distinguished physician who had practiced Home-
pathy since the time of Hahnemann. His sound and varied
learning, his thoroughly critical character, the care he bestowed
upon his patients, and the success which attended his treatment
of disease, together with his important and valuable contributions
to medical literature, rendered him much sought after by patients,
and his opinion highly esteemed by his medical brethren.
He died at Dresden on the 15th of July, 1868, after an illness
attended with much suffering. His widow, a son holding a
judicial position in Leipsic, and a daughter, the wife of a military
officer, survive him.
Dr. Trinks died at Dresden. June 15, 1868, at the age of sixty-
nine years.* One of Hahnemann's earliest disciples, he was
also one of the greatest gains to the new system. A man of in-
defatigable industry and self-sacrifice, he contributed largely to
the construction of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, and his
name will be found constantly recurring among the band of
provers who aided Hahnemann in his herculean task. He edited
*Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxvi, p. 693.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
127
with Hartlaub the valuable Arzneimittellehre and Annalen, which
gave to the world so many excellently proved remedies and
practical observations. In conjunction with Noack, or we should
say almost single-handed, for Noack soon gave up, he published
the Materia Medica that bears their joint names. He was in-
cessantly contributing papers of the most useful sort, practical
remarks, criticisms, to the Homeopathic periodicals almost to
the day of his death. In these papers he always showed himself
fully up to the science of the day, and to the last he took the
keenest interest in the progress made in all branches of medical
science. At an early period of the history of Homoeopathy,
when Hahnemann was in danger of being led away by some of
his enthusiastic but incautious disciples to promulgate crude
and untested notions, Trinks' common sense prevailed with the
founder of Homœopathy and prevented him committing himself
to views that could not stand the test of experience.
Trinks enjoyed a large practice and retained for life the confi-
dence of a large circle of patients. He was a man of genial dis-
position and had a fund of wit and humor which sparkled in
his conversation and often appears in his writings. He was
buried at his birthplace, Eythra, a village not far from Leipsic,
and was followed to his last resting place by a numerous company
of admiring and sorrowing friends.
WRITINGS.
De primariis quibusdam in medicamentor. Viribus recte æstimandis di-
judicandisque impedimentis ac difficultatibus. Lipsiæ: Brockhaus.
1823.
Homœopathy, an Open Letter to Hufeland. For the Benefit of the Hom-
œopathic Endowment Fund. Dresden: Arnold. 1830.
Samuel Hahnemann's Merits in regard to the Healing Art. An Address
at the Meeting of Homœopathic Physicians in Dresden. August 10, 1843.
Leipsic Schumann. 1843.
Handbook of Homoeopathic Materia Medica. Edited by Noack, Trinks,
and Müller. Leipsic: Weigel.
[See also Hartlaub and Trinks.]
1843-48.
No data obtainable.
F. C. URBAN.
128
STORY OF THE PROVERS
G. WAGNER.
Dr. Langheinz in an article, *"Relation of Peruvian Bark to
Intermittent Fever," says of Wagner: Still more defective ap-
pears the last of the proving histories to be adduced, viz., that
of G. Wagner. Nothing but the idea of enumerating here, in
connection, as many as possible of the symptoms of the Materia
Medica Pura could justify or excuse its insertion here; for out
of seventeen symptoms only nine have the time specified. Be-
sides which we know neither the condition of the prover, the
dose, the form, nor the time of taking it!
JOHANN WILHELM WAHLE.†
On the fourth of April, 1853, died in Rome, after a six months
illness, Dr. Johann Wilhelm Wahle, a true friend and protector
of the Homœopathic method of healing; the immediate cause
of death being repeated strokes of apoplexy. While we are in-
clined to attribute his death (which occurred far too early for the
interest of science) to the fact that his stout build of body could
not acclimatize itself in Rome, we are not disposed in any way
to doubt the assertion of the family who believe his death
caused by persecution. It is well known that Wahle, I believe
about the year 1848, in the time of the disturbances in Italy,
was arrested and imprisoned for several days, during which
time he was more than elsewhere exposed to the influence of the
Italian climate.
The consciousness of his innocence, which, indeed, was also
soon satisfactorily established, sustained him, and although the
most just and honorable satisfaction was given him he could
not in his acknowledged uprightness get over his grief for the
bitterness of his disgrace, since he thought that his moral stand-
ing had been injured. His family think that ever since that
time they have perceived in him traces of illness which, mani-
festing themselves more distinctly every year, caused an ever
more eager wish to be delivered from it by returning to his
German fatherland.
* Brit. Jour. Hom., Vol. xxiv., p. 377.
† Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. xlv., p. 369.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
129
Whatever the cause the fact is undeniable, and we survivors
can only lament Wahle's death without criticising the wise rul-
ings of Providence
Wahle was born in the year 1794, in Radisleben near Ballen-
staedt, a little town in the Duchy of Anhalt-Bernburg. His
father, who was at the same time shoemaker and farmer, had no
other intention than to bring up his son to the same occupation.
But the talents of the boy showed themselves so prominently that
the pastor of the place himself took the trouble of instructing him
in the Latin language. This had at least the effect that Wahle
on his confirmation, when he had to choose his future career,
did not enter his father's workshop, but went as an apprentice
in Ballenstaedt, with a barber, and after serving his apprentice-
ship came in his journeyings, then customary with journeymen,
to the city of Leipsic. When he had made himself well ac-
quainted with the state of affairs there, being eager to enlarge his
knowledge, he attended medical lectures from 1819 to 1823.
Much of what he heard may not have suited him; at least we
may think so from the fact that he desired to make Hahnemann's
acquaintance. This occurred just at the time when owing to
the death of Price Schwartzenberg, under his treatment, the
public judgment was not so favorable, and a beginner in medi-
cine would easily have been excused if he had kept far from
Hahnemann.
Nevertheless the impulse in Wahle to learn something better
than his calling at that time was so strong, that in the year 1820
he made himself better acquainted with Hahnemann's system,
soon after made his personal acquaintance, and faithfully sup-
ported him in his provings of medicines. But this intercourse
did not last long, for Hahnemann soon accepted a call to
Coethen and left Leipsic. After this Wahle joined some of the
few beginners in Homœopathy who lived in a closely united
circle (in ecclesia pressa), and he sought to continually enlarge
his knowledge of this new doctrine, using all the leisure time
at his disposal especially for the proving of medicines.
By this he acquired such a remarkable gift of observation that
few could excel him therein, and his practiced eye together with
his skillful use of Homoeopathic medicines gave him the super-
eminence over many who mockingly looked down on him because
they had regularly learned by rote the old conventional formulas
130
STORY OF THE PROVERS
of medicine. Despite of this they could not deprive him of the
reputation of a very skillful practitioner. In time his position
became even more difficult, his successful cures bordered on the
fabulous and gained for him an ever increasing fame among
patients far and near, as being a most successful healer. He
therefore entirely gave up his former occupation and married.
With the increase of his fame the attention of the medical police
was also more pointedly drawn to him, for the authorities had
in no way ceased in the fury of their persecution of Homœop-
athy. They were indeed no more able to lay any impediments
in the way of this new doctrine, and only indirectly sought to
be rid of its adherents by an ever renewed edict against their
dispensing their own medicines, raising thus as their breast work
the apothecary's privilege.
Still they did not despise any smaller aids in order to neutral-
ize more and more the courage of Homoeopathic physicians.
To avoid the frequent oppressive measures on the part of the
authorities, Wahle had gladly accepted the proposition of his
friend Dr. Haubold to treat the more difficult cases which would
excite the attention of the public, under his protection, as his
assistant. In this way quiet action seemed for a time secured to
him, but a new law expressely passed to affect the Homœopathic
physicians soon destroyed this modus vivendi, for they were for-
bidden to employ an assistant who had not studied in Leipsic,
who had not made clinical visits and passed the baccalaureate
examination. With the Homœopaths this law was strictly en-
forced while other physicians, who were in a like case, received
all manner of indulgences. Fortunately our friend Wahle had
already received a doctor's diploma from Ailentown in America,
and his voluntary determination to leave Leipsic received a
distinct direction through the mediation of the Royal Coun-
sellor, Dr. Wolff, in Dresden. This physician had been asked by
Dr. Braun whether he could recommend to him a good practicing
Homœopathic physician for Rome, and he recommended Dr.
Wahle, of Leipsic, as a man in every way desirable. Thus
Wahle, in the year 1840, emigrated to Rome, and his removal
was lamented by many whom he had restored to life and health,
and who regretted the future loss of his services.
Our friend Wahle left Leipsic to his own advantage, for with
all his industry and all the acknowledgment of his worth he
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
131
would never at Leipsic have acquired so extensive a circle of
usefulness as he found in Rome, where his extraordinary prac-
tical talents introduced him into the most cultivated circles in
which he had access to the highest personages and received their
confidence. Love for Homœopathy with him always advanced
with equal steps with the love of diseased humanity, and the
latter continually incited him to new investigations, whereby he
was often enabled to make possible what had formerly seemed
impossible, and more and more to prove the sufficiency of
Homœopathy.
His reputation as an author is just as well established in
Homœopathy as his fame as a successful practitioner has spread
throughout the whole of Europe. With respect to this his
articles on encephalitis and on croup should be mentioned,
where the truth is given in a faithful and unvarnished manner.
We have, indeed, no independent works from his hands, but the
Archiv and the Allgem, hom. Zeitung contain many observations
and relations of experience from his pen, among which the prov-
ings of Kreosote and Cimex lectularius deserve especial men-
tion. Many other provings made on himself and on others with
great circumspection and exactness were written out completely
by him and only awaited the critical file to prepare them for the
press, when death called him away from the completion of his
work.
As a man, equally as a father of a numerous family, he stood
worthy of honor. The great sympathy manifested when his
death became known confirms the esteem, love and intense
devotion which he enjoyed and which are the fairest laurel-
wreath on his all too early grave. He is reaping the reward of
the harvest cultivated with so much assiduity, and many tears of
sadness and mourning on the part of his poor, now forsaken
parents, flow at his departure from this life. (Signed) H. †
De Veit Meyer says:* Again one of the disciples of Hahne-
mann has gone to the eternal home. On April 9 of this year
(1853) Dr. Wahle died in Rome where he had practiced his noble
profession for the past ten years. His name and work are well
known to all Homoeopathists. He passed through the severe
struggle which Homoeopathy had to endure in its infancy. He
* Hom. Vierteljahrschrift, Vol. iv., p. 239.
† Hartmanu.
132
STORY OF THE PROVERS
came out of the conflict as a conqueror. After he had endured
innumerable and varied discords and attacks in his native land,
he repaired to Rome where he kindled a new torch, as a genuine
Apostle of our doctrine.
Here also he waged a new warfare and achieved a new victory.
Here he diligently sowed the new seed and reaped a delightful
and rich harvest. With the same honesty of belief and with the
same zeal he had formerly shown, he labored here in the seven-
hilled city. His fame spread abroad and hundreds sought his
help, which he distributed in unstinted measure but, alas, for
only a short span of life. There now weep and mourn for him
those whose sufferings filled his mind with tears and his heart
with sorrow. We plainly saw what love and confidence he en-
joyed. Actuated by a feeling of gratitude to Hahnemann he
came to Leipsic to participate in the erection of a monument to
his memory.
The report of his presence there was scarcely noised about
when a great multitude of his former patients flocked to him for
consultation. It was wonderful to see how he led back back-
sliders to Homoeopathy by some significant word, or by remind-
ing them of what he had done for them. He departed from
Leipsic as reluctantly as from a place to which he would
never return. He had scarcely arrived again at Rome when he
was attacked by a disease which soon proved fatal. We mourn
in him a valiant colleague, a profound thinker, a shrewd observer
and a true friend. Would that it may be permitted us to rear
an everlasting memorial to him by the publication of his highly
important literary remains. And may we right soon be enabled
to inscribe in the annals of Homoeopathy a record of this stir-
ring and fruitful life whose dissolution has afflicted us so griev-
iously.
Farewell, dear friend, thou who didst present us with thy
favor and love for a few moments of acquaintanceship! Rest from
thy weary pilgrimage! Rest, yea, rest in peace! May the grave
give to thee that peace of which so many of the sons of earth
sought to deprive thee!
Leipsic, April, 1853.
In the American Homeopathic Review for January, 1860, is an
article by Dr. Carroll Dunham upon Mezerium, in which he says:
The late Dr. Wahle, of Rome, one of the most distinguished of
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
133
→
Hahnemann's own pupils, and well known by his acquirements
in the science of Materia Medica, considered the provings of
Mezerium, which were first published in the fourth volume of
the Archiv, to be both erronous and defective.
It is no very uncommon thing to find a Homœopath who con-
siders a portion or the whole of our Materia Medica defective.
But the peculiarity which distinguished Wahle was this: when-
ever he saw an error or a defect, he thought it his duty rather
to go to work and correct the error or supply the defect than
simply to expose them and denounce the Materia Medica, taking
credit meanwhile for his own acuteness. Accordingly he insti-
tuted a new proving of Mezerium.
Kleinert says:* Wahle was an indefatigable Homoeopathic
worker, prover and exceedingly skillful connoisseur of remedies
who began his career as a common barber, and died a renowned
physician, in Rome, at a very early age.
He published no books, but was an extensive writer for the
Homœopathic magazines.
Hughes says of him (Chronic Diseases, p. 328) in a foot note
to Arsenicum: The remainder (of symptoms) are Hahnemann's,
obtained in his later manner, and Wahle's (eighteen in all), a
prover unnoticed in the preface, but whose name frequently
occurs among the second series of the Master's followers.
JULIUS WENZEL.
FRED. WALTHER.
Hering says:† Fred. Walther who went to parts unknown,
proved with the class under the eyes of the Master.
No other data has been found.
No data obtainable.
*"Geschichte der Homöopathie.
† Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii., p. 176.
""
K
134
STORY OF THE PROVERS
W. E. WISLICENUS.
Of Wislicenus but little data can be found. Hartmann says:*
Wislicenus who is still living at Eisenach (1848) also belonged
to the Provers' Union. His retiring disposition, his quiet,
friendly nature, united me to him all the more closely, as I
found it in harmony with my own cheerful yet timid disposition,
and because we almost always attended the same lectures, which
increased our intimacy and allowed us to pursue our private
studies together. We also engaged with each other in the prov-
ing of drugs, and endeavored to aid each other in selecting the
most suitable expression for the sensations which we experienced,
and we informed each other of the changes which occurred in our
external appearance, in our dispositions and upon the surface of
our bodies. Often have we been grieved and distressed by some
drug symptoms observed upon ourselves which frequently made
it necessary at the next proving to take a weaker dose, as
Hahnemann had previously directed us, because he always
doubted regarding symptoms which disquieted us, whether they
were the effect of the drug or of some particular disease.
In the Allegemeine hom. Zeitung, Vol. 69, p. 32, July 22,
1864, the following note appears: Wislicenus, Leipzig, July 22,
1864. On the 14th of the month died the last remaining scholar
of Hahnemann, Dr. Wislicenus, Sen. at Eisenach. Peace be to
his ashes.
Hering says: † W. E. Wislicenus, from a learned family, favor-
ably known both in Europe and America.
Lorbacher says: Of Wislicenus the elder, all that we know
is that he was a quiet, modest man of reserved disposition, which
in later years increased as a sort of anthropophobia. Still, as a
diligent and conscientious prover, he has earned a title to our
gratitude.
Rapou says: || At Eisenach in the Duchy of Weimar, long ago,
there practiced one of the first practitioners aud writers of our
school, Doctor Wislicenus, who labored successfully to base the
new method upon clinical experience; who has contributed many
*N. W. Jour. Hom., Vol. iv., p. 188. Mèd. Couns., Vol. xi., p. 242.
"Kleinert."
† Hahn. Monthly, Vol. vii. p, 196.
‡ Brit. Jour, Hom., vol. xxxii, p. 456.
|| Rapou, “Hist. de la doct. med. hom." Vol., 2. p., 549.
WHO ASSISTED HAHNEMANN.
135
useful observations and excellent articles upon the blood, upon
the treatment of syphilitic affections, which may be found in the
first six volumes of the Archiv.
Ameke says that in 1821 Wislicenus made trials of Homœopa-
thy in the Garrison Hospital at Berlin, under the control of mili-
tary surgeons. The results were favorable. The military
doctors took away the journal of the cases kept by Wislicenus
under their superintendence, in order to read it at their leisure.
In spite of his earnest entreaties they forgot to bring it back
again. (Ameke, p. 312.)
This is all that the compiler has been able, after extended
research to discover concerning the lives of these, the men who
laid the foundation for the Homœopathic Materia Medica. It may
be of interest to mention that quite a mumber of provings by
them were published in the Archiv of Stapf, from 1825 to 1840
PART II.
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
OF
HOMOEOPATHY.
"As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you
will find what is needful for you in a book.”
Pioneer Practitioners of Homœopathy.
ACHILLOIDES. The Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin in 1834,
both locate such a person in Thessaly.
ADAM. Was one of the provers of the Materia Medica Pura.
A writer in Vol. 38, of the British Journal of Homœopathy says
that Dr. Adam, who had made the acquaintance of Hahnemann
and whose name is familiar to us in connection with the proving
of Carbo animalis, about 1823 settled in St. Petersburg, where
Homœopathy was quite unknown. Adam was more devoted to
agriculture than to medical pursuits, and contributed little or
nothing to the spread of the new doctrine. It appears from a
letter of Dr. Stegeman's dated February 2, 1825, and published
in the Archiv, that he was then practising Homoeopathy with
zeal and success in Dorpat, Livonia. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38,
p. 305. See Provers, p. 1o.)
AEGIDI, JULIUS. Commenced his practice as an Allopath,
but was led to embrace the principles of Homœopathy by being
himself relieved of a chronic trouble through Hahnemann's per-
sonal treatment. He was physician to the Princess Fredericka
of Prussia, and practised in Dusseldorf, Konigsburg and Berlin.
He was one of the contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829, at which time he was district physician at Tilsit in Prussia.
In the Zeitung list and in Quin's list he is located at Dusseldorf.
He was a prolific writer, and his medical and social influence
were very widely felt.
At one time Dr. Aegidi proposed to Hahnemann to administer
a mixture of two highly potentized remedies each corresponding
to different parts of the disease. In the potentized state the
medicines thus mixed would be incapable of chemical reaction
but would each act separately in its own sphere. Dr. Bonning-
hausen approved of the idea and Hahnemann was induced to
present the matter to the meeting of the Central Society for 1833.
140
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Hahnemann was persuaded that this would probably lead to the
polypharmacy of the old school, and he decided to exclude this
doctrine from the new edition of the "Organon."
Jahr afterwards mentioned Aegidi's discovery, and Aegidi
answered Jahr in an article published in the Archiv for 1834.
Aegidi disavowed this method in 1857.
This matter caused Lutze, in his sixth edition of the Organon,
to declare that Hahnemann favored alternation of remedies.
Aegidi had previously repudiated the notion, however.
Hahnemann, in a letter dated 1831, says: "Did Stapf, as I
requested, give you the news for publication that Dr. Aegidi, of
Tilsit, has accepted the call as homoeopathic physician in ordinary
to her royal highness, Princess Fredericka of Prussia, in Dussel-
dorf, with a yearly salary of 600 thalers, traveling expenses,
and the written official permission to prescribe his own medi-
cines, and that he has entered on his office?"
In the Zeitung for May 18, 1874, is the following: A highly
honored veteran, Dr. Julius Aegidi, Privy Councilor, etc., who
until the very last practised Homoeopathy with unwonted vigor
and interest, and one of its last remaining veterans, is now gone,
having departed this life May 11, 1874, in his eightieth year.
He died of uræmia at Freienwalde, Germany.
The Monthly Homoeopathic Review for August, 1874, says
that he died at Freienwalde in his seventy-ninth year. Dr.
Aegidi was one of Hahnemann's earliest disciples. (Mo. Hom.
Rev., vol. 18, p. 526; Kleinert, 151, 230, 250; N. E. Med. Gaz.,
vol. 9, p. 384; Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 88, p. 168; Revista Homeo-
patica, vol. 20, 64; El Crit. Medico, 15, 96; L'Hahnemannisme,
July, 1874; Rapou, 2, 263–77, 553-82, 669; Revue Hom. Belge,
vol. 1, p. 92.)
ALBRECHT, C. A. In the list of contributors to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829 there are two Albrechts mentioned: Burgo-
master Albrecht, at Konigslutter and C. A. Albrecht, at Dresden.
In 1825 this C. A. Albrecht was a government official in Brunn.
He was a faithful correspondent with Hahnemann and devoted
his time to the manufacture of homoeopathic medicines. Being
himself an invalid, he was very thorough in his studies of the
action of remedies. He was not a physician, but is very closely
connected with Homœopathy. He, in 1851, published a biog-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
141
raphy of Hahnemann, a second edition of which was published
in 1875. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 200. Rapou, 2, 452.)
ALLEON. The name appears in Dr. Quin's list of homœo-
pathic physicians published in 1834, at which time he was
practising at Annonay, a town in France, in the Department of
Ardeche.
ALESSI. Dr. Alessi was one of the physicians appointed
of the commission to supervise the trial of Homœopathy by De
Horatiis in the Military Hospital of the Trinity, at Naples, in
1829. He was so impressed with these experiments that he
became a Homœopathist. (World's Con., vol. 2, 1670)
AMADOR, RISUENO D'. From British Journal: Homœo-
pathy has to lament in the death of this distinguished individual
the loss of one of its brightest ornaments. Although from his
situation as Professor of Pathology in one of the most illustrious
medical schools, that of Montpellier, he could not give a free and
unconstrained expression to his convictions, yet he took every
opportunity to declare his acquiescence in the doctrines of Hahne-
mann, whereby he so excited the ire of the medical faculty that
they prevailed on the then Minister of the Interior to promulgate
an order expressly prohibiting all mention of Hahnemann and
Homœopathy within the walls of the University. In a paper
read by him subsequently, before the scientific congress at
Nimes, of which an abstract is given in our 4th volume, he
virtually renews his profession of belief in Homœopathy. He
was a brilliant orator, an elegant writer, a philosopher and a
poet, and was held in high esteem by the adherents of the old
school, although his homoeopathic convictions occasionally
turned the wrath of his former eulogists against him. The
disease of which he died was of long standing, but he was at
last cut off rather suddenly on the 3d of August last, at Bagnere
de Bigorre, a watering place in the Pyrenees, whither he had
repaired for the sake of his health. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 8,
p. 141.)
AMMAN. The name appears both on the list of 1834, of
Quin, and that of the Zeitung, of 1832. He was then practising
Homœopathy at Darmstadt. He was also a contributor to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829.
142
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
ANDRIEUX. Was an adjunct professor of the Faculty of
Montpellier and lived at Agen. He declared himself in favor of
Homœopathy about 1835. He also made some observations
upon mineral waters. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 152. Rapou,
vol. 2, p. 55.)
ANFOSSI. Quin, in his list of homoeopathic practitioners
of 1834, mentions this name; he was then located at Arquata,
Italy.
ANNIBALLI is mentioned in Quin's list. In 1834 he was
practising Homœopathy in Rippattoni, Italy.
APELT. Apelt was a pioneer of Homoeopathy in Leipsic.
According to the Zeitung list of homoeopathic practitioners of
1832, Apelt was then a battalion physician stationed at Leipsic.
Quin also places him there in 1834. Rapou says that it was he,
who with Peez and Van Hornig, made in 1838 an important
study of the Wiesbaden water and a rich pathogenesis of it.
He joined the Leipsic Homœopathic Society in 1830. (Rapou,
vol. 2, p. 60.)
ARNAUD. In the British Journal is the following: We
have to record the death of one of the French veterans of
Homœopathy. Dr. Arnaud was once a president of the Homœo-
pathic Medical Society of France, and was well known as an en-
thusiastic Homœopathist and most successful practitioner. His
death occurred November 13, 1869. His remains were followed
to the grave by a large concourse of friends and colleagues.
(Bib. Hom. 'que, vol. 3, 286. Brit. Jour. Hom., 28, p. 415.)
ARNOLD, WILHELM. In the Zeitung is the following:
Leipsic, June 13, 1873. A veteran of Homœopathy is dead. Dr.
William Arnold, 73 years of age. He died on June 11th (1873)
in Heidelburg.
Rapou says: I went to Vienna, where reside Drs. Wilhelm
Arnold and Seguin. Arnold, a private professor in the Faculty,
undertook, in 1829, to prove by facts the falsity of the Hahne-
mannian doctrine. In this he experimented with remedies upon
a healthy body and found, to his great astonishment, the exacti-
tude of the observations of Hahnemann. He has adopted a
somewhat mixed system of specifics and devotes considerable
time to the study of pathogenetic phenomena. He has made
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
143
important researches upon Opium and an interesting observa-
tion on a cure of strangulated hernia with Nux vomica, for
which the allopathic physicians had employed every effort at re-
duction. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 86, p. 200. Rapou, 2, 610.
Kleinert, p. 165. Zeits. f. Hom. Klinik, 22-103.
ATTOMYR, JOSEPH. Joseph Attomyr was born on
the 9th of September, 1807, in Diakovar in Slavonia. His
father was an honest wheel-wright. It was probably the activity
of mind displayed by this studious boy which caused the parents
to désire for him a higher education. They therefore gladly ac-
cepted the proposition of a closely related kinswoman in Esseg to
assist the boy and to send him to the Gymnasium (High-school).
In the year 1825 he removed to Vienna and became there assist-
ant practitioner in the Garrison Hospital, and soon after he was
assigned to the Imperial Regiment of Cuirassiers of Auersberg,
No. 5, stationed at Ketskemet. In Vienna at that time Dr.
Marenzeller was making quite a sensation through many bril-
liant cures in the highest circles, having been called thither a
year before by His Majesty, Emperor Francis I., to prove the
efficacy of Homœopathy at the sick-bed. Marenzeller was at
that time the most celebrated name in the Capital and the most
prominent representative of Homœopathy, which was for the same
reason most violently opposed by other physicians. Among
others Dr. Mückisch also aired his opposition to the new method.
Joseph Attomyr, then practising in the garrison hospital, read
this abusive pamphlet with the greatest interest and came to
Ketskemet as a blind opponent to Homoeopathy, and he found
there Dr. Mueller, who treated and successfully cured the cavalry
soldiers according to Hahnemann's principles. He had to ac-
knowledge facts; his brief infatuation yielded to the convincing
successes of Dr. Mueller and to the doughty words of the com-
petent, honorable man who was an enthusiast in Homoeopathy
and who soon found a devoted follower in the susceptible youth.
What could be grasped in one brief year the zealous disciple
grasped with great eagerness, and being supplied with some
theoretical preparatory knowledge, and supported by the unde-
niable results of the homoeopathic remedies and the Hahne-
mannian doses in the most varied acute and chronic diseases, he
obeyed the orders to appear in Vienna to begin his medico-
chirurgic studies in the Josephs Academy. He studied with
144
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
great zeal and persistent industry; but at the same time he read
everything written for and against Homœopathy, and communi-
cated what he read to his colleagues; he gathered a small circle
of adherents around him and this caused him to come in conflict
and opposition with the greater number. At every occasion he
espoused the cause of Hahnemann and defended his principles
against the attacks of ignorant malicious companions. Through
these discussions, which were daily renewed, he had an attack
of coughing up blood, causing him to be received into the clinic.
After spending there fourteen days he left the hospital, while he
had a short and hacking cough. The imminent examinations
called for new mental exertions, and his chest-symptoms would
not yield. Attomyr therefore journeyed to his friend Mueller at
Ketskemet, to be treated homoeopathically. Here he visibly
improved and was able in two months to return to Vienna. About
this time Hahnemann's "Chronic Diseases" appeared—a new
occasion for violent conflicts with contrary-minded colleagues,
and new material for daily passionate wordy conflicts. In con-
sequence his bloody cough returned, followed by purulent sputa
with a consumptive fever, which brought the poor youth to the
brink of the grave. In this difficult situation his good genius
led him in reading the "Chronic Diseases," to Sepia. It was
especially Symptom 717 which led him to select this especial
remedy. He took one dose, and this gradually effected his cure.
Even his opponents could not deny the astonishing effect, for
they had declared this case of pulmonary tuberculosis as incur-
able and had given him up as surely lost. Hardly had he re-
covered when he was ordered either to go into the hospital or
into the lectures. He did the latter, though it came very hard.
One more troublesome year after his recovery he spent at the
Josephs Academy, studied with redoubled zeal, and was one of
the most distinguished and gifted pupils; nevertheless, he re-
ceived an inferior classification at the examination and was
therefore excluded from prosecuting his studies in this institu-
tion.*
A similar treatment was dealt out to Franz Melicher, who was
also a decided Hahnemannian. Both went to the University of
*Further particulars about Attomyr's period of study at Josephs Academy
till his graduation in Munich may be found in a pamphlet entitled: Atto-
myrade. Germany. 1832.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
145
Munich, where they were kindly received and where they re-
ceived their diplomas as doctors at the end of March, 1831. At-
tomyr returned to Vienna and was immediately received as family-
physician by Count Carl Csáky, and he followed him in that
capacity to Zips, in Upper Hungary. Both of them had to make
their escape in the same year to Vienna, their life being threat-
ened by revolting peasants; this especially our noble Attomyr
was sorry to have to do, for he was very eager to prove the effi-
cacy of Homoeopathy against cholera.
-
The continued ravages of this plague and the severe punish-
ment had quieted the masses. Attomyr returned to Upper
Hungary in 1832 and practised in Leutschau, where he at that
time was the only homoeopathic physician. The Diet of 1833
called the Count to Pressburg; Attomyr attended him and
labored zealously for the Hahnemannian doctrine by the sick-
bed, as well as with the pen. From here he wrote his "Letters
about Homœopathy," directed to Leipzig. About this time he
was seized with a severe fever of a typhus nature. His well-
approved friend, Dr. Anton Schmidt, gave him medical aid, and
induced him to accept, after his recovery, the position of physi-
cian in ordinary to the Duke of Lucca. Three years he re-
mained in this position, although it was entirely contrary to his
character. Glorious nature was his refuge; mineralogy and
botany his recreation. He arranged the ducal mineral collection,
and instituted a botanical garden at Marlia. After three years
he again returned to Zips to Count Carl Csáky, intending to set-
tle in Mindscent, one of the Count's estates. He commenced to
build a house just in agreement with his desires. He wanted it
to become his resting-place; but it remained half-finished, for
his restless spirit was driven out into the great waves of human-
ity, there to gradually regain his tranquility. The Diet again
assembled at Pressburg, and Attomyr again went there, a real
apostle of Homœopathy. He found only too much employment
here, which caused a physical exhaustion, which soon took away
all desire and pleasure to treat patients, and increased his con-
stant desire of closing his life in rural retirement. In spite of
all advice of his friends, he rented a house and small farm at
Hadersdorf, near Vienna, to live there in retirement. He in-
tended to attend the lectures at the Foresters' Academy, in the
neighboring Mariabrunn. But the pension promised him by the
G
146
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Duke of Lucca failed to come. He could only secure its renewal
by legal process, so our poor farmer in spe remained for the pres-
ent at Pressburg. At the conclusion of the Diet he moved to
Pesth, and practised, successfully as usual, by the side of his
revered friend and former teacher, Dr. Mueller, loved and es-
teemed. But disagreeable circumstances again drove him back
to Pressburg, where he finally settled in the year 1844. Here I
found him a year later, contented and serene, living for suffering
humanity, for science, for nature, and for a small circle of inti-
mate friends. The adherents of Hahnemann had also day by
day become more numerous in Hungary, while the voices of the
opponents had become ever rarer and their assaults weaker.
Carried forward by the conviction and the successes of its gen-
uine and thorough-going representatives, Homœopathy was
even then triumphing over its fading rival, and those among
the people who had the courage to think for themselves, sought
and found assistance, without being tormented, without en-
dangering their vital strength, without the loss of precious
fluids, and in the shortest possible time. Attomyr's cutting
weapon was therefore allowed to rest. His morbidly irritated
being had for some time become tranquil, the youthful storms
had done roaring, the chagrin about the half hearted Homœo-
paths had simmered down, and in the mature man with the
kindly glittering eyes, with the benevolent smile and the child-
like mind, no one would have again recognized the author of
"The Letters on Homoeopathy" and of the cotemporaneous
polemic articles of the Archiv. All his thoughts and endeav-
ors were turned to the development, perfecting, improvement
and diffusion of Homœopathy, which he considered as the great-
est blessing to humanity, as the most important discovery of the
century. He enriched homoeopathic literature by articles in the
journals and by independent works*; with friendly readiness he
* Our readers will no doubt have a vivid recollection of his last two
weighty articles in our journal: "The Significance of the Minerals in Our
Materia Medica and Pharmacodynamics,” and “What is the Meaning of
Characteristic ?" and they lament, no doubt, with us most deeply, that
death has imposed eternal silence on so active and clear a spirit. Of inde-
pendent works of Attomyr we possess besides the before-mentioned "Let-
ters on Homœopathy" (1st No., Kollman, Leipzig, 1833; 2d and 3d Nos.
Leipzig, Koehler, 1833 and 1834): (1) The Venereal Diseases, A Contribu-
tion to the Pathology and Homeop. Therapy of the Same (Leipzig, 1836,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
147
•
supported every physician who showed a leaning to Homœop-
athy, and in spite of the weak state of his health, he gave a self-
sacrificing personal assistance to many patients. In the summer
of 1850 he was seized with a cough with an expectoration of
blood and afterwards of pus, but he succeeded in removing it.
Every succeeding winter, however, brought him a cough with
more or less purulent expectoration, but summer would always
restore him. Despite the weakly state of his health, impelled
by a rare love of knowledge, he spent three full months of the
last summer of his life in the General Hospital of Vienna, partly
in order that he might take up some anatomico-pathologic
studies, partly that he might practice auscultation and percus-
sion. A short time afterward his heart was yet more
joiced by the meeting of the Central-Verein für Homöo-
pathie in that same Vienna, which twenty-five years before
he had to leave owing to his enthusiasm for Homœopathy.
His appearance in the session of the 10th of August, 1855
(see Vol. 50, p. 22 of this journal) was the last flashing up
of a spirit hastening to its glorification. Its beneficent
ray penetrated the minds of all, and all there present no
doubt preserve a joyous though sad memory of the occasion.
Attomyr was acutely sensitive to the very cold November of the
same year, and often complained of an inability to get warm.
Despite of all warning and advice, he was generally dressed very
lightly, and despite the furious wintry storms, he continued to
visit his patients on foot. Finally, on the night from the 12th
to the 13th of December he was confined to his bed by a rheu-
matic fever. This was attended with pains in the occiput,
throbbing and diffusing themselves over the whole scalp, pain-
ful to the touch; pains of the muscles of the back, drawing,
tearing pains following the course of the intercostal nerves, ac-
companied with short, dry tussiculation, after a time becoming
moist and causing the expectoration of some grayish, tough
mucus. Acon., Bryon., Hepar s. c., Chamomilla, Dulcamara
and Ignatia gradually dissipated all the pains; with moderate
re-
T. O. Weigel); (2) Theory of Crimes, Based on the Principles of Phrenol-
ogy (Leipzig, 1842, G. Wigand); and, finally (3) Beginning of a Natural
History of Diseases, Vol. I, Brain and Spinal Marrow (Vienna, 1851, W.
Braumueller). · This last work shows the enormous industry and idealism
of Attomyr; it is, however, unfinished.
•
148
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
perspiration, and there was a continued secretion of urine, leav-
ing a sediment; after 14 days the fever ceased. He only slowly
began to mend, and it was the fourth week of his illness before
our poor friend could leave his bed for a short time. After six
weeks he had recovered again so far that he could smoke and go
to his writing desk. But on the 24th of January, without any
provocation, he was seized with drawing, tearing pains follow-
ing the course of the sciatic nerves down both the thighs, so that
he was compelled to keep his bed. He himself determined yet
on Nux vom., but the pains continued, and made it impossible
to rest at night. Rhus, Lycopod. and Graphites gave some relief,
but soon his vital force was broken down. During the night of
the 29th, for the first time his consciousness fluctuated, and
there was an involuntary micturition. From now on the patient
refused all nourishment, and would not even take water except
with aversion. Medicines he would generally spit out. Delirium,
lack of recognition, indistinct utterance, cadaverous fetor from
the mouth and sopor followed each other during the last eight
days, and on the 5th of February, 1856, at 9:30 P. M. he ceased
to breathe.
The noble soul only slowly left its ruinous tenement, as if the
love of mankind caused it to linger; or was his departure delayed
by the wishes and prayers of so many friends and admirers? But
mightier than our wishes and desires was the determined, unal-
terable will of the Almighty, according to whose decree His
favored and devoted son should rise into a higher sphere of
activity. Thanks and pious wishes accompanied Attomyr to a
better home, and his memory will be preserved by all to whom
he was enabled to extend his benevolence. Painful, grateful
and full of longing is the elegy of the faithful companion of his
life, who herself weak and suffering, laments unselfishly her
support and her consort so near to her soul. Not less fervent
and sincere my warm gratitude follows my glorified friend to all
the far-off regions, for he has acquired a holy right to my
thanks, since he tended my beloved ones like a protecting
genius when a severe blow had separated me from them.
May he be blessed! He has truly acquired a title to heaven!
A. E. NEHRER.
PRESSBURG, April 16th, 1856.
Rapou says of the St. Joseph Academy cure: This cure roused
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
149
the pupils to earnest study of the doctrine; the doctor-professors
sought to hinder this research, declared Hahnemann's theories
nonsense, but the students were not to be cajoled. They ad-
dressed an open letter to Dr. Toltenny, Professor of Pathology,
asking him to be allowed to continue their experiment Tol-
tenny disliked to take this request to Isfordink. While they
were deliberating over this problem, an article appeared in Vol.
9 of the Archiv exposing the vices of the ancient therapeutics.
The Academy Joseph accused Attomyr of being its author, and
it was decided not to longer permit the presence of such an agi-
tator in the Institution. To give a legal appearance to this ini-
quitous act, they waited until the examinations, then near. It
was decided in secret conclave to dismiss from the Academy the
partisans of the new method. This caused general fear among
the students, each sought to hide the remedies and to sell the
books; to efface all traces of Homœopathy. The students now
fell away from Attomyr excepting two or three. The academic
council decided to make a domiciliary visit to Attomyr and his
adherents. The day of the examination came and by false
records Attomyr and some others were compelled to leave the
establishment, where for five years he had been esteemed. His
friend, Frank Melicher, was thus treated, and a third named
Conrad Romer. Melicher had already received the degree of
doctor from another faculty, and took a place among the Polish
physicians; he there obtained an honorable decoration, and
settled in Berlin.
Attomyr, without pecuniary resources, driven from the Insti-
tution, had been without doubt lost to the art but for Dr.
Antoine Schmidt and his good master, the physician of the
regiment, Dr. Müller, who came to his assistance. With their
aid he went to Munich where the director of the medical studies,
Clinical Professor Ringseiss, received him with friendship. At
the instigation of Attomyr this physician applied himself to
homœopathic experiments. (See Ringseiss.)
Rapou says: "I passed much time in the society of Attomyr,
with whom I discussed many points in our doctrine. There is
in Attomyr a poetic excitement, a chivalrous devotion to the in-
terests of our school, an independence of opinion united to wise
originality that attracts and charms; ardent by nature, not chilled
by contact with the coldness of science." Rapou then enters into
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
a discussion of Attomyr's medical views. Attomyr went from
Pesth to visit Stapf and profit by his experience. He visited
Germany. Returning to Hungary he wrote in three volumes
the Letters on Hom'y." publ., in 1833-1834. These are com-
posed of clinical observations, piquant anecdotes, polemics and
bright descriptions.
"
The British Journal says: Homœopathy has lost one of its
most zealous and talented adherents in the decease of this well-
known and deservedly esteemed Hungarian physician.
Attomyr's name has been long very prominently known to the
students of Homoeopathic literature as well by his numerous
contributions to the Archiv of Stapf, as by his separate treatises.
and useful works. The last work on which he was engaged
was the "Primordien einer Naturgeschichte der Krankheiten," a
highly original and ingenious arrangement of our pathogenetic
knowledge and clinical experience, but of which only two vol-
umes were completed at the time of his death. We suspect this
work was not encouraged by the profession as much as it merited,
probably because of its novelty. We have frequently found
these two volumes of great service. Among his later works is a
monograph on the physiological effects of poison developed in
fatty substances, which shows a great amount of research. Dr.
Attomyr's was without doubt a most original mind, and some of
the works he engaged in have a character of eccentricity and
quaintness about them that have excited much ridicule. Dr.
Attomyr died at Pesth, where he had long practised his profes-
sion with success, on the 5th of February, 1856.”
In Quin's list of 1834, Attomyr is given as practising at
Homona, Hungary. It appears in the same way in the Zeitung
list of 1832. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 527; World's Con.,
vol. 2, 21; Kleinert; Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 51, p. 152; vol. 52,
p. 33; vol. 52, p. 33, 143; Rapou, vols. 1, 2.
"C
BAERTL, JOSEPH. The Monthly Hom. Review for June,
1868, says: Dr. Baertl was an eminent practitioner of Homœo-
pathy in Austria. He has contributed several essays of practical
value to homoeopathic literature, some of which are translated
in the British Journal of Homoeopathy. He died in March,
1868, at his home in Vienna.
The Zeitung list of 1832 gives Baertl as a practitioner of
Homœopathy in Moor, Hungary; Quin, in 1834, places him at
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
151
the same place.
He was one of the contributors to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829. In this list he is mentioned as regi-
mental physician to the 5th Regiment of Hussars. (Allg.
hom. Zeit., vol. 76, p. 120.
Mon. Hom. Rev, vol. 12, p. 383.)
BAKODY, JOSEPH. Dr. Joseph Bakody was born of poor
parents in Wieselburg, Hungary, on February 21st (or 1st),
1791; he attended the elementary schools in Raab, where he
found a patron in the Canon, the Count Stahrenberg, who con-
sented to pay his expenses in the university if he should succeed
in being the first among his fellow-pupils. In this he really suc-
ceeded, and the expenses of Bakody's medical studies and his
promotion to the dignity of Doctor Medicina, were paid by the
liberality of the aforementioned Canon. Bakody received his
diploma in 1820, at Pesth, having written his inaugural disserta-
on "de salutari naturæ et artis counubio.” He commenced his
career as physician in Papa, near Raab; one and a-half years
later he moved to Raab on account of a disease of the eyes of his
patron, who desired to be treated by Bakody.
Scarcely had he come to Raab when his attention was directed
to Homœopathy by two laymen, apothecary J. Buchberg and
Andr. Schwaiger, the bookseller. The latter provided Bakody
with homoeopathic books, the former with homœopathic medi-
cine. Bakody read the books, and showed surprise and curiosity,
whereby these friends of Homoeopathy were moved to drive with
him to Kommorn to the staff surgeon Braun, who gradually
completed the work begun by Buchberg and Schwaiger. Bakody
soon publicly declared himself in favor of Homoeopathy, and
with this began his war with his allopathic colleagues, which
reached its acme in the time of the cholera. Bakody had 154
patients, of whom only 6 died, while his allopathic colleague
asserted that he (Bakody) only treated 8 patients, all of whom
died. This caused Bakody to save his honor and that of Homœo-
pathy by testimonials, judicially attested. In consequence,
there appeared in 1832 the pamphlet: "Justification of Dr. Jos.
Bakody in Raab against the groundless attacks of two physicians
of that city with testimonials judicially attested." Soon after
this his patron, Count Stahrenberg, died. This fact chiefly
contributed to his leaving Raab and moving to Pesth, where
during the last nine years before his death he was one of the
busiest of the homoeopathic practitioners. His death was caused
152
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
+
by a sort of Febris apoplectica, after a brief period of sickness,
on the 2d of November, 1845. At the dissection of the body
there were found a few spots in the skull as thin as paper;
these had been worn thin by excrescences on the brain. Doctors
Mueller, Hausmann and Rosenberg ministered to him unin-
termittingly, day and night, in a loving spirit. The disease
seemed to have been caused by excrescences on the dura mater
and thence to have beeome incurable.
Homœopathy loses in him one of its most worthy priests, his
patients a loving, sympathetic physician and society a most
upright, modest and honorable man. Bakody, in his facial out-
lines, his bodily build, and in his bearing, had a very great
similarity to our good friend, E. Stapf. This similarity was also
extended to two of his daughters. It is possible that the
brain-disease that was developing in Bakody was a cause of the
absentmindedness that was peculiar to him. It was not unusual
for him to go off without his hat. To the education of his
children, Bakody devoted a considerable part of his leisure hours
and of his considerable income. He left behind him a very
choice library, which in its medical department contains all that
has been written since the beginning of Homoeopathy either in
favor or against the same; as also a complete supply of homœo-
pathic medicines. It is very much to be desired that a homœo-
pathic physician may be found who may buy the homoeopathic
books and medicines, so that they may not be scattered or fall
into uninitiated hands.
The cases of death which are now becoming more numerous
in our camp, show that the generation which stood at the cradle
of Homœopathy and heard and shared in its first joys and its first
sighs is passing away and is giving way to a new generation,
which will have only a dim conception of the struggles and
the persecutions which their predecessors had to encounter.
Bakody's life quite especially had been painfully moved and em-
bittered by the blind fury of his opponents. The martyrdom
suffered for our convictions is one of the most difficult, but for
that reason, also, one of the most sublime sacrifices, which life
at times requires of us. Bakody brought this sacrifice to
Homœopathy, and the mound raised above him will not lack the
tears of many thousands of his patients and friends, as was once
OF HOMEOPATHY.
153
the case with the martyrs to another, equally powerful con-
viction. May he rest in peace!
Sweet is the rest in the attic
On which raindrops patter low,
So there is rest in the coffin,
Where friendly teardrops flow.
-DR. ATTOMYR,
It is related of him that so great was the opposition to him
after his conversion to Homoeopathy that at a consultation Dr.
K- — threatened him with a cane; Dr. P wanted to throttle
him, and Dr. T———— wished to split his head open with a chair
—until at last at the outcry of the patient, a baker's journeyman,
freed him from his assailants. This scandal was so well known
in Raab that street urchins would mimic this battle of the
doctors.
Dr. Bakody was practising in Raab, Hungary, when on the
27th of July, 1831, the cholera broke out there. It spread rap-
idly. Dr. B. made an exclusive and extended application of
of Homœopathy to this scourge and says: "I found Homœopathy
surprisingly salutary against that terrible scourge the cholera,
as I had before found it in other maladies. * * * I was also
forced twice to suspend my medical practice, having experienced
two attacks of cholera caused in part by an uninterrupted and
excessive fatigue. But God be praised, Homoeopathy has twice
restored me with astonishing promptitude, and I soon found my-
self in a state to resume anew, with great efforts, the duties of
my profession.” Out of 223 cases of cholera treated by Dr.
Bakody, but eight died. At the time when he was having such
great success, Dr. Karpf, an Allopath, carried complaints of him
to the Municipal Council of the town, saying that he prevented
the true medicine from exercising its salutory influence, as every-
body wished to be treated by him. He suggested that Dr.
Bakody be put in prison until the close of the epidemic. The
people, however, were not to be blinded by such prejudice; they
saw that Dr. Bakody could not treat them all and so addressed a
petition to the allopathic physicians demanding that they at
once embrace Homeopathy, and also inviting other homœo-
pathic physicians to come to Raab. This petition was addressed
to the editor of the Gazette at Pesth, but when it was presented
to the Health Officer, Dr. Leuhoscek, he prevented it from being
printed. (Am. Jour. Hom. Feb., 1835; from Bib. Hom., No. 2,
154
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1832; Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 29, p. 369; vol. 31, p. 305; Rapou,
vol. 1, p. 145 ; vol. 2, p. 585.)
BALDI. The name appears on the list of Quin of 1834,
where Baldi is given as first physician to the king of Sicily.
BALOGH, PAUL VON. The name appears in the Zeitung list
of 1832, and in Quin's of 1834, at which time he was practising
Homœopathy in Pesth, Hungary. He was also one of the con-
tributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829: Rapou says:
• Dr.
Balogh, corresponding member of the Society of Medicine of
Lyons, held a very distinguished station among the Homoeopaths
of Pesth. Soon after graduation he traveled to the principal
German universities, and ended his scientific tour by a visit to
the celebrated founder of Homoeopathy. He was struck by the
lofty reason and profound knowledge of the chief of our school,
and he adopted his method at the beginning of his medical
career. He is one of the few who never have practised accord-
ing to the old school. His time is devoted to the study of the
new school and the social and literary regeneration of his coun-
try. All his talent as a writer, a linguist (he spoke well seven
languages), and his ripe erudition are consecrated to the success
of that national reform. Member of all the learned societies of
Pesth, he carried off many prizes at the academy of that town.
To Homœopathy he has attracted a great many patients, but
despite that he is a Hungarian literary man, and never has his
pen refused to do service in medical questions. Armed with a
letter of introduction to him from my father, he received me
with friendship, gave me all his time, taking me to see his
patients, and giving me lessons on clinical observation. His
opinions are little different from those of Hahnemann. He
maintains the extreme exactitude of regimen, employ, high
dilutions, and believes in the psora theory. He gave not only
the globules that had been moistened, but those not medicated
since the beginning of his practice, and found daily their action
efficacious. He had acquired rare knowledge of remedies."
Rapou devotes several pages to a discussion of Balogh's prac-
tice. (Rapou 1, 422, etc.; 2, 569.)
We
BAMBERG, HEINRICH. On the 25th of November,
1853, Heinrich Bamberg, Doctor of Medicine and Surgery, died
in Berlin of inflammation of the bowels. He was born Febru-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
155
ary 22d, 1801, at Meseritz, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, and
received there his first education; his schooling was con-
cluded by a four years' course at the Gymnasium in Berlin.
In the year 1822 he was enrolled in the University of
Berlin, and especially attended the lectures of Knape, Rudolfi,
Hufeland, Rust and Grafe with great assiduity. He gradu-
ated on the 29th of December, 1826, after defending his dis-
sertation, De Hydrocephalo acuto, and then began his medical
career in his native town. In the cholera of 1831 his colleague
in the city died at the very outset, and the heavy burden of
treating the patients in this town severely visited by the epi-
demic, fell singly on him. The magistracy publicly acknowl-
edged his faithful and careful fulfillment of his duties (Vossisch.
Zeitung, 1831, No. 247), and Minister Flottwell expressed to him
personally his gratitude. When he married in Berlin, in the
year 1833, he made the acquaintance of Stueler, the Medical
Counsellor, and was won over to Homœopathy through him, and
this the more easily as this milder treatment corresponded with
character, and he generally took a lively interest in the progress
of science. Since the new method of healing was not so well
received in his native town he removed to Berlin in the year
1835, where he became a friend and helper to many sufferers,
and was faithfully devoted to Homœopathy till his death; he
created for himself a happy, medical sphere of usefulness. Only
for two years of this time he lived on the estates of Count
Schwerin, in Wolshagen, out of regard to his own health; also
there he continued his practice of medicine.
He worked for our journal for several years most industri-
ously, carefully and uninterruptedly, making reports from the
English homoeopathic journals. But the work which gave him
most pleasure was "A Summary of the History of Medicine
from its Earliest Origin to the Present Time." This work should
have appeared next Easter, but he did not live to complete it.
For many years he had collected material for this work and with
unending industry he had devoted to it all his leisure hours.
He had for some time back been suffering from abdominal
troubles, spasms of the stomach, etc., but in the autumn his
healthy appearance, his joyousness and serenity showed that
he had fully recovered. The more unexpected came his death,
after only three days' sickness, far too early for his mourning
A
156
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
family, the patients who sought his help, and for medical science
and art. RUMMEL. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 47, p. 15. Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 12, p. 318.)
BANO, AUGUSTIN LOPEZ DEL. Was a distinguished
homœopathic physician of Seville, Spain. He was a member
of the Military Board of Health and Deputy to the Cortes. He
translated the Organon into Spanish. (World's Con., vol. 2,
p. 324. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.)
BARACZHAZ, GREGOR CAPDEBO VON. Baráczhàz
was born in Elizabethstadt, in Transylvania, in the year 1777.
He studied medicine in the University of Vienna, receiving his
diploma in 1801. Having returned to Hungary he became dis-
trict physician in the district (comitat) of Temes. He intro-
duced important improvements in the sanitary administration
there, which were afterwards systematized by decrees of the
district and which are still in force.
After practicing Allopathy for twenty-nine years, Capdebo
went over to Homœopathy in the 53d year of his age. His
wife, in consequence of apoplexy, had suffered for a long time from
hemiplegia. Capdebo and the best physicians of his neighbor-
hood had tried all remedies in vain. He poured out his com-
plaints to his old friend, our now deceased colleague, Dr. Forgo.
He advised him to try Homoeopathy. Capdebo laughed, but
Forgo offered to treat his wife homoeopathically. After a pro-
longed struggle Capdebo agreed, and Forgo in a short time
cured the wife of Capdebo. The latter was astonished, but not
yet convinced; but he himself requested Forgo to make a trial of
Homœopathy on his son, who had been deaf for years, and
remained such despite of all allopathic remedies. Forgo ac-
cepted the proposal, and cured the son with one single remedy
in a very short time. Now Capdebo thought it worth while
to investigate Homoeopathy. He sent for books and medicines,
and his trial of the new method proved a success. Capdebo
entirely relinquished Allopathy and devoted himself with his
whole soul to the new theory. How successful he proved is
shown by the fact that as his journal shows, he treated 14,000
patients in ten years; this included a number of foreigners who
had come from a great distance. The practice of Homœopathy
had so far occupied all the time and vigor of Capdebo, that he
OF HOMEOPATHY.
157
had neglected the administration of his landed property, causing
a considerable loss to his family. His health also had suffered
from his excessive medical practice, so that at the advice of his
relatives, he gave up his practice. But scarcely had he recup-
erated somewhat, when he renewed his activity, which only
ceased with his death, which ensued in Pesth in the sixty-second
year of his life, on December 29th, 1839.
The poor in the neighborhood lost in Capdebo not only a kind
physician in their diseases, but also a generous helper in their
distress. Capdebo was universally esteemed, and owing to his
captivating geniality he was beloved by all who knew him.
The ladies never spoke of him but with tears when they men-
tion his goodness of heart; especially when they speak of his
marriage which was universally acknowledged to be an ideal one.
The opponents of Homoeopathy have often said that only
young, enthusiastic, inexperienced, poor physicians without
practice turn to it. This reproach, altogether false as it is, has
again in the case of Capdebo been altogether refuted; for he was
an experienced physician of twenty-nine years' practice and
already 53 years of age, when he took up the study of Homœop-
athy. Besides this, Capdebo was a wealthy landed proprietor, so
that it could not be supposed that he took up this practice for
the sake of making a living.
During the last year Capdebo was engaged on a large practical
work, the completion of which was prevented by his death. The
undersigned hopes to come into the possession of this manu-
script, but for the present he only wishes to rescue from oblivion
so worthy a disciple of Hahnemann; for there are few who de-
serve as well as Capdebo to have his memory preserved in the
heart of all true friends of homoeopathy, but of those now living
and of those who will arise in the future. Peace be to his ashes!
-ATTOMYR. (Archiv. 22-2, p. 184.)
-
BARTH. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 Barth was
then practicing Homeopathy at Greitz, in Saxony. Quin also
gives the name in the list of 1834.
BAUDIS, ISIDOR. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832,
and on that of Quin of 1834; Dr. Baudis was then practising
Homœopathy at Hederwar, Hungary. In the list of contribu-
tors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, which was published in
158
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
pamphlet form and also in the Archiv., the following appears,
Isidor Baudis, physician in ordinary to the Count at Hederwar,
in Hungary.
BAUMANN.
Practised at Lehr, in Baden. His name ap-
pears in the Zeitung list of 1832. Dresden. On Nov. 6, 1879:
departed this life a veteran of Homoeopathy, Dr. Baumann, at
Mimmingen, after a lingering illness. (Zeit. f. Hom. Klinik.,
vol. 28, p. 192. Pop. Zeits. f. Hom., x, 137.)
BAUMGARTEL. Was an early practitioner of Homœo-
pathy in Glancha, Saxony. His name appears on the Zeitung
list of 1832, and on that of Quin of 1834.
BAYARD. Quin gives the name in his directory of 1834 as
being-Exercitus Medicus at Libourne, a town in France, about
twenty miles from Bordeaux.
BAYER, FATHER.
Rapou mentions having met Pere
Bayer who had been in Baltimore, Md., and had united the
functions of priest with lay practitioner of Homœopathy. He
says he was much respected by all classes and that the Indians
venerated him. He had studied with Dr. Siegrist, of Switzer-
land. (Rapou, 1. p. 95.)
BEYER, CARL VON. In the list of contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829 appears the name Carl von Beyer,
under field physician to the 48th Infantry Regiment at Oeden-
burg, in Hungary. His name is in the Zeitung list of practi-
tioners of Homœopathy in 1832, and in that of Quin of 1834.
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 54, p. 56.)
BEELS. Quin gives the name in his list, locating him in
Rotterdam. After the name there is, however, an interrogation
point.
BECKER, BENJAMIN.
Was born in Sumneytown, Mont-
gomery Co., Penna., March 22, 1796, of German parentage.
His father, Dr. J. J. Becker, came to this country in 1775, set-
tled in Sumneytown in 1795, and died there in 1813. When
fifteen years of age young Becker assisted his father in prepar-
ing medicines, and in minor surgical operations, and often
accompanied him to the bedside of his patients, thus acquiring
some knowledge practically of disease. After the death of his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
159
father, being anxious to pursue his studies, but without means,
he was compelled to labor for several years to gain the necessary
money. In 1818 he married the daughter of a Quaker family.
In 1819 he attended his first course of lectures at the University
of Pennsylvania. In 1820 he located at Lynnville, Lehigh
county, and soon had a good practice. In 1824 he removed to
Hamburg, near the line of the Schuylkill canal, then being ex-
cavated, where he soon had a large practice in consequence of
numerous accidents among the laborers and of the prevalence of
ague remittent fever, which followed its construction. The year
following a severe epidemic of dysentery appeared, which was
unusually fatal; Dr. Becker differed from the allopathic opinions
of that day regarding its treatment, and under his more advanced
plans his success was so general and the improvement of his
patients so rapid that he acquired a most enviable reputation for
his skill and a large increase in practice. In 1833 the Board of
Directors of the Schuylkill County Poor House appointed him
steward, physician and clerk. In July, 1835, he removed to Or-
wigsburg, where, in consequence of some remarkable cures
which came to his notice, he became interested in the study of
Homœopathy and finally adopted it in his own practice. In con-
sequence of this he was obliged to pass through the usual ordeal
of ridicule, sarcasm and proscription at the hands of his former
colleagues, but he fought his own battles and found his practice
constantly increasing; in fact, in consequence of the numerous
calls he received from Lebanon and vicinity, he soon found it
advisable to move thither; and the result was that he had soon
a very extensive practice in all the adjoining towns, and thus
introduced Homœopathy into Lebanon, Harrisburg, Dauphin,
Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Perry, Snyder, Juniata, North-
umberland and Luzerne counties. In 1839 he removed with his
family to Orwigsburg, surrendered his practice to his associate,
and during the next seven years traveled in the West, and in
five successive journeys he practised Homœopathy in Ohio, Ken-
tucky, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, California, Colorado, and
Utah; everywhere with credit to himself and with honor to the
cause. In 1866 he received a well-merited degree from the
Homœopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania. (Trans.
World's Con., vol. 2, pp. 702–757. Cleave's Biography.)
160
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
BECKER, REV. CHRISTIAN J. was one of the original
directors of the Allentown Academy. In his younger years he
had attended medical lectures in Baltimore. At the advent of
Homœopathy in Northampton county he was located at Kriders-
ville, Pa. He soon began to take great interest in the law of
Homœopathy, its study and practice. He became a successful
practitioner and a member of the Medical Society of Homœo-
pathic Physicians of Northampton County, being one of its orig-
inal members. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 774.)
BEHRENS. Quin, in his directory of physicians practising
Homœopathy in 1834, mentions Behrens, who was then located
at Wetzlar, Prussia.
BEISTER. In 1834 Quin locates him at Lyons, France.
BELLUOMINI, GUISEPPE. Dr. Belluomini's name ap-
pears in the Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin's list of 1834, at which
time he was in practice in London. He was, after Drs. Romani,
Taglianini and Quin, the first to practise Homœopathy in
England. Rapou says that in 1843 he returned to Italy, there to
end his days in repose. Dr. Belluomini was associated with Dr.
Mauro in the translation of Hahnemann's "Chronic Diseases "
into Italian. He died at Turin in 1854. Dadea says that Bel-
luomini first gained knowledge of Homœopathy from the Italian
translation of the "Materia Medica Pura" about 1825; at that
time he was practising in Viareggio, in Tuscany. (Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 12, p. 534. Vol. 14, p. 193. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 76,
133, 143. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 107.
1073.)
BENE, FRANZ VON. In the list of contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829 the name appears. He is designa-
ted as Medical Counselor and Professor of Special Therapeutics
in the Hungarian University at Pesth. The name is also on the
Zeitung and Quin lists.
BERNHARDTI. The Zeitung list of 1832 places this physi-
cian at Altenburg, Saxony. Quin, in the list of 1834, also men-
tions him.
·
BETHMANN, HEINRICH. Dr. Heinrich Bethmann was
born October 1st, 1797, on the Burgk, in the principality of
Reuss-Greiz. His father was Gottlob Bethmann, who was beadle
there, and his mother Sophie Marie nee Walther, from Glaucha.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
161
He received his first instruction in the public school of his
home; but besides this in his later school years he had private
instruction from the school teacher, the Candidate Helfer, and
from Pastor Rein, in Moesplitz, who also, in his thirteenth year,
prepared him for communion and confirmed him. After leaving
school he came to his uncle Walther at Limbach, near Chemnitz,
to learn from him the practice of medicine and pharmaceutics.
When later on his uncle accepted a position as chief surgeon in
the military hospitals at Freiber and Chemnitz, Bethmann was
appointed there as assistant surgeon, and he labored, now in the
French hospitals, then again in the Austrian; he passed through
various diseases, and was finally dismissed with the rank of chief
surgeon, in acknowledgement of his activity and skill.
As he had not only acquired much practical knowledge in this
position, and with his simple way of living, had also laid by a
little capital, he spent a part of the latter in making an extended
journey through some parts of Germany into Holland and Eng-
land. He visited Amsterdam and London especially with the
intention of making himself acquainted with the position and
the functions of a naval surgeon, as he desired to find such a
position in order to go to the East Indies or the West Indies.
But on closer acquaintance with the official and functional posi-
tion of such surgeons he changed his views and returned to Ger-
many. He now went to Leipzig with the intention of there
studying surgery, in order to combine the theory of his art with
the practical part, in which he already was proficient. But
the more the spheres of the higher sciences opened before
him the more he felt a call to widen the range of his studies.
So it came that he devoted himself for five years to the study of
the whole of the medical sciences, not without undergoing for
part of that time many privations and restrictions. In his last
years he combined with his studies some medical and surgical
practice. During this time, in consequence of some practice on
himself, he came to recognize the great value of the homœopathic
method of cure, to which from that day on he devoted his whole
zeal and activity. In the year 1823 he went to Giessen and there
acquired, under Rector Crome, his diploma as Doctor of Medicine,
Surgery and Obstetrics. Then he returned home, where he first
lived for a year as practising physician on the Burgk, but after-
terward settled down in Remptendorf, where he was appointed
162
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
next year as physician over the district of Burgk. On the 24th
of November, 1825, he married Miss Dorothea Taeuber, from
Lobenstein. But his faithful consort was taken from him as
early as February 22d, 1827, in consequence of a difficult partur-
ition. A son from this marriage is yet alive. In order that he
might give to this dearly-bought child another mother as soon
as practicable, he married on September 9th, 1827, Miss Chris-
tiana Eleanora Hoffmann, of Zoppothen. But this marriage was
soon terminated, as his young wife died on the 22d of April,
1828, from a violent inflammation of the lungs. A third, a very
happy marriage union, was formed on November 3d, 1829, with
Henrietta Wilhelmina Grau, from Schoenbach, near Altenburg,
who in time presented him with a daughter, who is still living.
With the fairest hopes he now saw a happy future smiling
before him. But the many painful experiences during the past
years, combined with unceasing exertions in his restless official
career, impaired his health; and only by the greatest care and
the most strict order of life, he succeeded in averting more severe
disease.
In the year 1832 he received from Dr. Hahnemann an in-
vitation to move to Coethen in order to continue there his
practice as Hahnemann's assistant. He accordingly went to
Coethen; but he found various difficulties in the way of his ac-
cepting the position, and refused the offer. As little was he
inclined to enter on several other offers to remove to another
place to practice. The quiet rural scene and his domestic
arrangements in Remptendorf had become too dear to him, and
too well agreed with his wishes and views of life, for him to
easily separate therefrom.
Nevertheless, the state of his health of late years became con-
tinually more precarious, and only the greatest care and the in-
defatigable faithful nursing and the loving assistance on the part
of his dearly beloved wife made it possible for him to continue
his practice, in large part by letter. With heartfelt gratitude he
recognized the loving self sacrifice and devotion of his wife,
whose sterling worth only fully manifested itself in those days
of trial, and he often expressed his conviction, that the preserva-
tion of his life was solely due to this happy union, and that only
thereby was he still enabled to benefit suffering humanity by his
activity.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
163
On August 8th, 1843, his earthly career terminated at the age
of 45 years and 10 months; he was buried on the 11th of August.
Bethmann was possessed of a goodness of heart such as is
rarely witnessed; what he was as a scientifically educated phy-
sician and as a Homoeopath, best appears from our journals. He
was distinguished by the most amiable modesty, and it was his
expressed wish that his life, as his decease, be passed over in
silence. I therefore refrain from any further words, but as he
belonged to science, his wish could not be altogether granted.
We owe it to ourselves to make mention of him; and to all who
knew him more intimately, his name will ever remain imperish-
able.
The disease which gradually caused his death, was a chronic
inflammation of the windpipe, which in the beginning was
neglected by the active man, who only lived for his profession.
This disease later on assumed a malignant character, and scorn-
ing all remedial art, it terminated his life far too early for his
friends and his family.-GR.
Rapou says: "In 1835 Dr. Bethmann, of Burgk, furnished the
exact indications, partly clinical and partly pathogenetic, of the
Iodine and Bromine waters of Adelgeid, near Heilbrunn, in
Bavaria. The pathogenetic effects were observed in patients of
different sexes who had come to those springs for treatment.”
(Allg. hom. Zeit. vol. 26, p. 78. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 60.)
BERGMANN. Dr. Bergmann, practitioner and homœopathic
physician in Linz, is, at seventy years of age, dead. (A. H. Z.,
December 13, 1875.)
Leidbeck writes "Bergmann died of smallpox soon after I
had sent my account to Dr. Grieselich, in 1835, about the state
of Homœopathy in Sweden." (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 91, p. 200,
vol. 92, p. 48.
World's Con., 2, 342.)
BERTRAND was a physician in Paris. He died January 25,
1883, at the age of seventy-four. (Bibl. Hom., vol. 14, p. 160.)
BEYER, VON. Dr. Joseph Von Beyer died at Prague, on
March 20, 1857, after a lingering and painful illness. (Allg.
hom. Zeit., vol. 54, p. 56.)
BIGEL was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy in Russia.
His name appears among the contributors to the Hahnemann
164
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
.
1
Jubilee of 1829. He is mentioned as physician to the Grand Duke
Constantine in Warsaw. In the Zeitung list of 1832 he is located
at St. Petersburg; also in the Quin list of 1834. Dr. Bojanus
says that: “In 1824 Dr. Bigel, of Strasburg, was appointed phy-
sician to the Grand Duke Constantine Paulovitch, and accom-
panying him to Dresden he there became acquainted with
Homœopathy during a fierce medical controversy then raging,
and was led to the study of Hahnemann's Organon. Convinced
of the truth of Homoeopathy, Bigel published in 1825 his Justi-
fication de la Nouvelle méthode Curative du Dr. Hahnemann nommé
Homœopathique, the effect of which was proportionate to the
high position and talents of its author. In 1829 he was en-
trusted by the Grand Duke Constantine with the care of a hos-
pital for the children of soldiers in Warsaw, and he treated them
homoeopathically. In 1836 he published a Domestic Homœo-
pathic Guide. Dr. Bigel introduced Homoeopathy into Warsaw."
Everest writes: "In the year 1824 Bigel, the chief physician
of the Grand Duke Constantine, accompanied to the baths of
Ems the Duchess and her family; and on their return they spent
some time at Dresden, in which city Homeopathy had at that
time a few warm partisans. Attracted by the conflict between
the advocates of the new and old systems, which had made much
noise and excited considerable attention, he resolved to spend
the leisure time afforded him by his accidental stay in the
Saxon metropolis in investigating the question he found so
acrimoniously litigated. 'Je lus (he says) Hahnemann et ses
adversaires avec la froide impartialité d'un homme qui cherche la
verité;-like every other individual without one single exception
who has done the same, the sceptic became a convert— the con-
vert a partisan. He studied Hahnemann and renounced his own
practice, and that renunciation he followed up by publishing in
1827 in his native tongue (the French) a work in three volumes
in which he zealously advocated and recommended to his
countrymen the doctrines he himself had adopted. Bigel pub-
lished this work at Warsaw, where he resided. Few copies of
it, if any, reached Paris, and in what is called the capitol of the
civilized world, the world's latest blessing was still a spring
shut up, a fountain sealed.
Hahnemann, in a letter written April 10, 1829, says: "In
Warsaw, Dr. Bigel has received from Grand Duke Constan-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
165
tine 500 sons of soldiers for homoeopathic treatment, and Dr.
Cosmo de Horatiis, in Naples, has received from his king.
the transfer of a large homeopathic clinic. Thus things are
progressing in foreign parts." (World's Con. vol. 2, p. 247.
Brit. Jour. Hom. vol. 38, p. 306. "Popular View of Homo-
opathy, New York,” 1842, þ. 126.)
BILLIG, JOH. HEINRICH SIEGFRIED. Died during the
month of September, 18-, an old homoeopathic physician,
Joh. Heinrich Siegfried Billig. The name appears on the Zeitung
list of 1832 and on Quin's of 1834. He was then practising
Homœopathy in Leisnig, Saxony. (Allg. hom. Zeit. vol. 51,
p. 40. Hom. Viertelj. vol. 6, p. 478.)
BIRNSTILL, JOSEPH. Was born at Rastadt in the Grand
Duchy of Baden, Germany, August 9, 1809. He was educated
at the Universities of Freiberg and Heidelberg, studied medicine
at Wurzburg, Bavaria, under Prof. Schonlein and then studied
for two years at the Paris hospitals. He was converted to
Homœopathy by Dr. Griesselich. He left Germany for political
reasons, in May, 1833, landed in New York July 10th, and soon
after went to Dunkirk, at a time when the name Homoeopathy
had scarcely been heard in Chautauqua county. His knowledge
of our language was so limited that he could converse only in
German or with the aid of an interpreter. As at this time
there was hardly a person that could speak German, the doctor
labored under great disadvantages. He was quite successful,
however, mostly in chronic cases. He remained here for eight
months, when he removed to Westfield, in the same county.
He gradually acquired a knowledge of English, and his practice
increased, especially in chronic cases that had been abandoned
by other physicians. Meeting with no sympathy from the other
physicians, after two months he went to Buffalo where he re-
mained but a few months, when he returned to Westfield and
resumed practice. His success had brought him many friends.
among the most intelligent families. When he applied for
membership to the Chautauqua County Medical Society with
authentic evidence of having received the degree of doctor in
medicine, he was rejected solely on the ground of his homœo-
pathic practice. He was liable to prosecution and a fine, but
continued to practice, and made important cures.
His poverty
166
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and foreign birth, with the ridicule of the old school physicians,
finally drove him away. He went to Erie, Pa., in 1839, and
thence to Massillon, O., where his health failed and he removed
to Worcester, Mass. Here he practiced for three years, and in
1847 went to Boston, where he remained two years, and in 1849
removed to Newton Corner, where he had an extensive practice
till he died February 16, 1867, aged 56 years. In 1849 the
Quarterly Homœopathic Journal, edited by Drs. J. Birnstill and
B. De Gersdorff, first appeared. It was published by Otis Clapp,
and was continued for two years. A new series was begun in
1853, edited by Drs. J. Birnstill and J. A. Tarbell, which also
was published two years. Dr. Birnstill was elected a member
of the American Institute of Homoeopathy in 1865 at Cincinnati.
His death was occasioned suddenly by haemorrhage from the
lungs. The funeral services were conducted by the Masonic
fraternity, of which he was a member, the stores of the village
being closed during the ceremonies. The account of the closing
scene at the grave was thus published in the Newton Journal:
"An intimate friend of the deceased, Professor Kraus, of Harvard
University, then advanced to the foot of the grave and looking
down upon the coffin, spoke as follows: 'Farewell, true and
noble heart! We send our parting greeting after thee into the
silent grave.
Thou hast been faithful in the relations of life as
husband, father, friend, physician, citizen. Gentle and peace-
ful be thy rest. When we are sad we will remember thee whose
death now plunges us in sorrow, but whose companionship in
life so often dispelled our griefs! When we are glad we will
recall the hours when thou didst share our joy. Older in years
than most of us, thou wast as young as we. May the earth lie
softly on thy true and faithful breast! Farewell.' '"' This address
was couched in German, and was both chaste and classical. It
seemed to awaken a sympathetic chord in the minds of the many
Germans present. The Masonic body again opened their circle
to admit the Orpheus Club, which advanced to the foot of the
grave and sang, with great pathos and beauty, two pieces appro-
priate to the scene of mortality before them. (Trans. Am. Inst.
Hom. 1893. (World's Con., 1876, vol. 2, 455.
vol. 2, p. 69.)
N. E. Med. Gaz.
Was one of the early practitioners of Homœopathy
BLANC.
in Paris.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
167
BLASI, ANTONINO DE. Was one of the pioneers of Ho-
mœopathy in Italy. Was editor of Annali di Medicina Omio-
patica par la Sicila, in 1837-
BLAU. Leipsic, February, 1, 1861, Dr. Blau of Gotha is
dead. Was an early practitioner of homoeopathy in Ichters-
hausen, Thuringia. His name is among the contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. Both the Zeitung and Quin lists
locate him at Ichterhausen. (Allg. hom. Zeit. vol. 62, p. 48. Fl.
Blatter, Jan. 10, 1861)
BENNINGHAUSEN, CLEMENS MARIA FRANZ
VON. In the A. H. Z. vol. 68, p. 56, appears the following
note: “As we send our journal to the press, we receive the very
sad news that on the 26th of January, 1864, our C. von Bon-
ninghausen succumbed, in his seventy-ninth year, to a stroke of
apoplexy. Under the first impression of this news, which will
find among all our colleagues an equally sad echo, we are only
able to exclaim to day a farewell to the noble departed. Our
science has lost in him one of its first leaders, our journal one
of its best co-laborers, the Society of the Physicians of the
Rhineland and Westphalia its head and its pillar, our Central
Society a much honored member, and we, personally—a faithful
friend and loving teacher. May the earth rest light upon him!”
And in the following number this biography: Our sense of
fervent gratitude and high esteem for our departed friend and
colleague C. von Benninghausen, the constant and esteemed con-
tributor to our journal, lays upon us the sad duty of accompany-
ing his bier with a few words of love and acknowledgment, and
to set him a monument which no one who has come to know and
comprehend his efforts and labors may pass without feeling the
deepest sadness and the greatest respect. We would gladly for
a long time yet have escaped this painful duty, but the Parces
consult not the wishes and desires of men, and Atropos cuts the
thread of life with relentless hand. Happy for us, if she do not
approach the spinning Clotho with premature swiftness with her
sharp steel. And the departed seems, indeed, to have been an
especial favorite of the Goddesses of fate, for he reached an age
such as is granted by Providence only to few of the sons of earth.
And if we view this life and consider with what excellent quali-
ties and virtues it was equipped, the constant activity in the
>
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
endeavor to benefit his fellow men and posterity, surely, the
all-consuming death cannot wipe out this life, for it will live in
the history of our science, it will continue to be a glorious ex-
ample for our young men, who will be able to kindle the torch
of their courage and vigor at his activity even in his old age.
Let us not delay, therefore, to bring before our readers this life,
faithfully and truly, as the deceased himself described it to us
about two years ago.
Clemens Maria Franz von Benninghausen, Doctor of Laws
and of Medicine, was born on the 12th of March, 1785, at
Heringhaven, an estate belonging to his parents in Overyssel, a
province of the Netherlands. His father, Ludwig Ernst von
Bonninghausen, lieutenant colonel and chamberlain of the
Prince of Münster, Knight of a Dutch Order, van de unie,
died as early as May 5th, 1812; his mother, Theresia, nee
baroness of Weichs on the Wenne, died April 7th, 1828. Of
his five sisters and brothers, among whom there was only one
older, one a half-brother, all have preceded him for several
years.
His ancestors whose name and coat of arms are found even in
the thirteenth century, and one of whom as an Austrian General
Field Marshal was raised by Emperor Ferdinand, by a diploma
dated May 20th, 1632, to the estate of imperial baronet, belong
to the oldest nobility of Westphalia and the Rhineland. Since
nearly all the Bonninghausens in the last 300 years had de-
voted themselves to the military career, their possessions were
only of moderate extent.
The first years of his youth Benninghausen constantly lived
in the country, where his body, indeed, was well developed
by riding, swimming, hunting and similar bodily exercises, but
his mind was only sparingly developed by his tutor. When he,
therefore, in his twelfth year came to the gymnasium (High
School) in Münster, he received a place very near the bottom of
the class, but he worked his way up even in the first term, so as
to rise to the first bench, a place which he continued to hold.
After attending the gymnasium at Münster for six years, he
entered the Dutch University of Groningen, where he spent
three years, attending not only the judicial lectures but with
especial predilection the more important lectures in natural
history and medicine.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
169
On the 30th of August, 1806, he defended his inaugural dis-
sertation, De Jure venandi, and received the diploma of Doctor
utrinsque juris. On the 1st of October of the same year he was
appointed lawyer at the Supreme Court at Deventer, and thus
entered on his judicial career, which was, however, a brief one.
In the autumn of 1807 he accompanied his father to Utrecht,
whither his father was deputed as the representative of the
Electoral Committee of Oberyssel to Louis Napoleon, who was
then King of Holland and residing at Utrecht. The son was
admitted to the audience as the speaker, he being better ac-
quainted with the French language. A consequence of this was
the undesired nomination of Auditor of the Privy Counsel; this
nomination arrived afterwards very unexpectedly. His career at
the Dutch Court from that time on took a very unusually rapid
course. Leaping over his colleagues who were in part older, he
was within a year nominated to be Auditor to the King, and
hardly fourteen days afterwards as General Secretary des requetês.
In this position, influential but very laborious, which was
rendered more burdensome during his last half year through his
function as Royal Librarian and Chief of the Topographical
Bureau, as well as by the treasurership des secours, Bonning-
hauser remained until the resignation of the King of Holland,
on the 1st of July, 1810. When Benninghausen through this
act which caused him the severest grief, had lost his extremely
kind and benevolent master, he refused all further employment
in the Dutch Civil Service, and in September, 1810, he returned
to the paternal hearth, to devote himself to the study of agricul-
ture and of the sciences more closely connected therewith, and
especially to botany, which gradually became his favorite study.
Having married in the autumn of 1812, he in the spring of
1814 removed to his hereditary estate of Darup, to develop its
resources, and he gradually entered on correspondence with the
most prominent agriculturists of Germany, especially with
Thaer and Schwerz. This gave occasion to several contributors
to the "Maeglin sche Annalen," among which his article on
"the Culture of Rye according to Twent," seems to call for
especial mention, as Thaer caused a separate edition of it to be
printed (Berlin, A. Ruecker, 1820); by his counsel and example,
he continued to labor for the improvement of agriculture in
Westphalia. Among these works we would mention the
T
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
establishment of the Agricultural Society for the District of
Muenster. This was the first society in the western part of our
kingdom and in an enlarged form it is still in existence. Its
first meeting took place on the 3d of May, 1819, in the capital
of the district of Coesfeld, then under his charge. Besides
several other pamphlets in this department, we would mention
"Statistics of Westphalia Agriculture in 1828 (242 pages, 8vo.),”
published at Munich in 1829.
At the reorganization of the Prussian Provinces, Rhineland
and Westphalia, he was offered, in the year 1816, the position of
President of the Provincial Court of Justice for the Westphalia
district, in Coesfeld, where his estate of Darup was situated; he
accepted the position and retained it till 1822.
During this period the necessity of registering the surveyed
lands in the provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia was recog-
nized, and Boenninghausen as the sole Judicial President was
called to the conferences held about it at Godesberg near Bonn,
so as to give in his opinion, as a practical and theoretically cul-
tivated agriculturist, with respect to the technical part of the
valuations. In consequence, Bonninghausen and Mr. Bolshausen
were appointed General Commissaries for the registration for these
provinces. This new office caused almost continual travels in the
communities to be registered, but at the same time an increased
opportunity of investigating the Flora of these provinces, which
was diligently made use of and enabled Benninghausen to pub-
lish as the first fruits a “Prodromus Florae Monasteriensis,” con-
cerning the abundant floral riches of these provinces. This con-
tained much that was new and showed the similarity of our Flora
to that of England. About this time the direction of the Botanical
Gardens at Münster was transferred to him; this he conducted
for a number of years and it brought him into communication
with many of the first botanists of Europe. His agricultural
and botanical writings found sufficient applause, to cause him to
be honored not only with the diplomas of many learned societies,
but to receive also the highest botanical distinction, as C.
Sprengel (Syst. veg. III, p. 245), and Reichenbach (Uebers des
Gewaechsreichs, p. 197), each named a genus of plants after him.
A serious derangement of his health, hitherto so firm, took
place in the fall of 1827; this was declared by two of the most
celebrated physicians to be the purulent tuberculosis and became
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
171
even more desperate in the spring of 1828; this was the first oc-
casion of his becoming acquainted with Homoeopathy. For
when all hope for his recovery was given up, he wrote a fare-
well letter to his old and never forgotten botanical friend A.
Weihe, M. D., at Herford, who was the first homoeopathic physi-
cian in the whole of the provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia,
though Bonninghausen was ignorant of it, since their frequent
correspondence had only touched botanical subjects. Weihe,
deeply moved by the news, answered at once and requested an
exact and detailed description of the disease and its concomit-
ants and expressed the hope that he might be enabled by the
newly discovered curative method to save a friend whom he
valued so highly. Bonninghausen of course followed most con-
scientiously the kindly advice given him and received medicine
from Weihe and gradually recovered, so that at the expiration
of the summer he could be considered as cured.
From this time onward Bonninghausen was not only a firm
believer, but also an active promoter of Homoeopathy. After ex-
horting and attempting in vain to create an interest among the
physicians of Münster, with whom he came into frequent con-
tact as being himself a member and one of the founders of the
Medical Society, he himself put his hand to the work, refreshing
with industry and zeal the half-forgotten medical lore acquired
at the University of Groningen, and had the pleasure of becom-
ing of use to many a one who sought his aid. Only two of the
most aged of the physicians, Drs. Lutterbeck and Tuisting,
whose attention had become fixed on Homoeopathy, owing to
some surprising cures of their own patients, who eventually had
turned to B. for aid, became converted to Homœopathy, con-
tinually sought counsel and instruction from B., and remained
faithful to the newly-found truth even till their death. Some
foreign physicians of France, Holland, America, etc., were also
attracted by B's. growing fame, and were gained for the new
doctrine. But not being an approved physician, and, therefore,
not entited to a medical practice, he had to fear great trouble
and obstruction in his career; he, therefore, during his first year
directed his activity chiefly to literary work by which he en-
deavored to make more easy and thus to further the practice of
Homœopathy; finally, however, by a royal order of King Fried-
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
rich Wilhelm IV., dated July 11th, 1843, he was empowered to
practice without any restraint.
Most of the works of B. date from this first period, works
which were then in the hands of all German Homoeopaths, and
were used exclusively even by Hahnemann till his death, and
which have found many imitators, translators and plagiarists.
For he soon recognized the fact that the foundation of all true
healing rests on an exact knowledge of the virtues of the medi-
cines; he, therefore, made it his chief aim to discover the char-
acteristics of the remedies and to place these side by side so that
the investigator could without great loss of time either refresh
his memory or find in the original sources what was needed. B.
in the beginning devoted to this work his winter months when
he was more at leisure, but after completing the registry of the
surveys and having requested and received his dismissal from
Civil Service, he devoted all his leisure to these literary works
and to his homœopathic practice. This is fully proved by his
independent works, as well as by his communications in the
Archiv and in the Zeitung and in the Homœopathe belge.
As Bonninghausen had formerly corresponded with Thaer and
Schwerz and later with Sprengel, Koch, Link, Decandolle, etc.,
so since 1830 B. regularly and constantly corresponded with
Hahnemann himself and with Stapf, Gross, Muhlenbein, Weihe,
etc., till their death. After the decease of the venerable founder
of our school and of the "Veterans of the Old Guard," he con-
tinued his correspondence with the celebrities of this science.
both in his native land and in foreign parts. In the year 1848,
he instituted a yearly assembly of the homoeopathic physicians
in Rhineland and Westphalia; this continues to the present
time. In consequence he was elected member of most of the
homœopathic societies still in existence, as well as of the few
that have already passed away; the Homoeopathic Medical Col-
lege at Cleveland (North America) made him Medicine Doctoris
by a diploma dated March 1st, 1854, and the Emperor of France
appointed him a knight of the Legion of Honor, April 20, 1861.
In spite of his having already entered on his 78th year, his
health, thanks to Homœopathy, leaves nothing to be wished for,
and his mental as well as his physical powers permit his con-
stant activity in a science to which he has dedicated the re-
mainder of his life of continued action.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
173
Of his seven sons two have followed the example of their
father. The older (Carl, born November 5, 1826,) has now for
several years been living at Paris, and, indeed, in the most pros-
perous surroundings, having married the amiable adopted daugh-
ter of the highly respected widow of Hahnemann, with whom he
lives, and by his access to the library legacy of this celebrated
man he will soon be able to communicate to his colleagues much
of interest from the manuscripts and diaries left behind.
The younger son (Friedrich, born April 14, 1828,) had first
entered the judicial career, and after completing his studies at the
University, he had passed with honor through the first two ex-
aminations, first for the Auscultatur and then for the Referend-
ariat; when he determined to devote himself to the medical
career. He accordingly passed through the required university
course in this department and through the official examination.
As is right and proper he desired first to see with his own eyes
the success achieved by both schools before he will decide for the
one or the other. The result is even now, however, no more a
question, and B. may confidently count on having two thorough
and faithful successors in Homœopathy, as he also, from his other
five sons, has only joy, such as is rarely the portion of a father of
so large a family.
This is the image of the long and rich life of our excellent
Bonninghausen, as he himself sketched it down, full of thank-
fulness to fate which preserved him from external misfortune,
and full of the highest reverence to our teacher and master, to
whose grand creation he consecrated half his life. From the
moment when he saw his shattered health restored by means of
the then little known Homœopathy, he vowed to himself that
he would study the new curative method, in order to be able to
work for its diffusion. And how well he fulfilled this vow!
Surely not in the manner of most men, but with an unselfishness
and strength of character such as is found but rarely nowadays
among men. Having received a truly classic education, inti-
mately familiar with the natural sciences, he found no difficulty
in spite of his advanced age in acquiring the necessary medical
knowledge to successfully begin the study of Homoeopathy.
Soon he had received its principles "in succum et sanguinem,"
and with the clearness of his insight, he had felt that the Materia
Medica of Hahnemann forms the basis and most important ele-
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
ment of the whole of Homœopathy. In consequence he made
this domain the almost exclusive subject of his studies. With
what zeal and with what success he devoted himself to it is
shown by his extensive, exceedingly successful practice, as well
as by his many literary works and labors. His knowledge of the
effects of the remedies became ever more enlarged and deep, so
that after the death of Hahnemann there was no one who could
vie with him in this knowledge. Very often in our extended
correspondence with the deceased we had occasion to admire,
yea, to be amazed at his mastery in this respect. Distinguishing
clearly, even to a hair's breadth, was his diagnosis of the reme-
dies, and this was not based on mere external and secondary
symptoms, but it seized upon the internal and the totality of the
effects of the remedies. A brilliant example of this he gave,
in his parallel between Causticum and Calcarea, contributed
to this journal. He was well aware of the fact, that a number
of those Homoeopaths, who by all means wish to reform Homœo-
pathy, without possessing the knowledge and the true compre-
hension of the subject necessary thereto, were opposed to his
endeavors, and in many ways defamed him; but neither revil-
ings nor sarcasm were able to turn him from the path after he
once had seen it to be the right one. From the beginning of
his activity for Homeopathy he stepped in the footsteps of
Hahnemann, and he followed the same path most strictly and
conscientiously to his last breath. But he did not follow the
maxims and doctrines of the master blindly or without free de-
termination. Honoring him above all and protecting him from
every defamation, he, nevertheless, did not consider him infalli-
ble in every point, while he recognized his great discovery as
without blemish and perfect. Therefore all his endeavors were
expended toward making the practical side of Homœopathy per-
fect and to facilitate its practice at the sick-bed. The greater
number of his independent works, as well as his more numerous
articles and treatises, with which he furnished especially Stapf's
Archiv and our journal, especially aim at this one point. As the
first and highest commandment in the successful homœopathic
treatment of a patient, he with Hahnemann considered the strict
and exact individualization; the accurate examination of
patients and the detailed sketching of the image of the disease,
which he shortly before his death warmly recommended to all
.1
OF HOMEOPATHY.
175
the younger physicians in a special treatise. Even in the last
years of his life he published a second edition of his Therapy of
Intermittent Fever, the first part of which has just now ap-
peared in a totally revised and augmented form.
Thus our departed friend labored for half a century with rest-
less activity for our Homoeopathy with an energy which belongs
to a man who has devoted his life to a holy truth. As such he
considered the doctrine of Hahnemann, as a precious inalienable
jewel, which must be carefully cherished and guarded from every
impure admixture. Ever more glorious, so he wrote us in one
of his letters, will Homœopathy unfold its banner, ever more
brightly will it beam in the firmament of science, ever more full
of curative virtue she will show her wonderful powers, if she is
not decked with any false finery, nor disfigured with any
borrowed attire or ornaments. Homoeopathy is a natural growth
and independent in its nature, and every alien admixture is but
to her detriment. The germ of its development lies in her own
nature, and it, therefore, only needs an intelligent gardener, who
will give it the necessary and correct culture, and also faithful
watchmen, who will relentlessly destroy every parasitical plant
that would approach it.
And as he thoughc and spoke, so he also faithfully acted. He
would not deviate an inch from the doctrine and rules of Hom-
œopathy, and only within it and through it he thought and
found the way for its development and perfection. As such a
rule he also viewed the minimizing of the dose and its rare
repetition. In consequence, during his last decennium he used
only the high potencies, usually the 200th, prepared by Lehr-
mann in Schoeningen. He did not endeavor to theoretically
explain the efficacy of these minimized doses, but he endeavored
to prove it by brilliant successes. We would here only mention
the cures of animals communicated by him in the last volume of
this journal; these he told in the most unassuming manner, but
they indubitably prove anew the excellent efficacy of these high
potencies. He combatted the principle laid down by many
Homœopaths, that acute diseases called for stronger doses than
chronic diseases, and showed the inconclusiveness of this as-
sertion by his many cures of croup with these same high
potencies; the same fact has also been lately demonstrated in
many cases by practice. This operation with such very small
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
doses is not a matter for everybody to indulge in, for it requires
a special and exact knowledge of remedies, such as the deceased
possessed and such as not everybody else has at his disposal. We
are far from desiring to enkindle again the vexed dispute about
doses, but we think we ought to declare that the deceased, by his
consistent and successful practice, proved that the homoeopathic
principle of the minimum dose is an indisputable truth, and be-
longs as much to the totality of Homœopathy, as its first prin-
ciple, the law of similia. In this manner B., following in the
footsteps of the Master, has benefitted Homoeopathy by confirm-
ing and perfecting it; and by this means he has contributed not a
little to the more general reception of the homoeopathic doctrine.
For this, as well as for all his great services to Homœopathy, the
fervent gratefulness and most faithful love of all his loyal col-
leagues attends him to his grave, into which he took with himself
the fair consciousness of the most honest fulfillment of his duties
and of his useful activity. He could depart in peace, for he had
faithfully and conscientiously used the time granted him and
finished his work. His spirit never sought for rest, for new
work was to him a new recreation. Seldom, therefore, have the
leisure hours of a learned man given birth to a fairer work
than the one left us by the deceased, namely: "Notes to
the Aphorisms of Hippocrates." This forms a treasury of his
learning and classic culture, and a testimony to his unassuming
modesty.
These qualities, indeed, were the ornament of his whole life
and activity. He never desired to impose with the fulness of his
knowledge, nor to impose on others his convictions, no matter
how fully he was permeated by them. He bore no ill will to
his adversaries and opponents, who did not always oppose him
with the respect he deserved, nor did he pay them back in their
own coin; if they did not appear worthy of a reply he left them
unnoticed; or, in the other case, he endeavored to convince
them of their errors in a scientific manner. Never an expression
or a word flowed from his pen which in any way violated social
propriety or the respect due to a colleague. Chivalrous in the
true sense of the word, he hated all discord, and he early accus-
tomed himself to honor the merits even of his opponents. As in
science so in general, he loved truth above all things; this shin-
ing pearl of his life was encircled by a rare honesty and
OF HOMEOPATHY.
177
gratefulness, amiability, and goodness of heart. And, as if
heaven desired to reward these virtues already here, it granted
him a long life, free from care, a sturdy health, and a vigor en-
during even to an advanced age, and it also granted his desire
for a brief and painless death-bed.
"It was only since the beginning of the last winter,
as his
son, Dr. Friedrich v. Bonninghausen, writes us, "that my dear
father suffered from phlegm on the chest, causing from time to
time an increased cough, and during the expectoration, which
was loosened with difficulty, asthma. About New Year, owing
to a cold, caused by the prevailing cold north-east wind, there
was an aggravation, causing some apprehension. But owing to
the excellent effect of the rightly chosen remedy, his health im-
proved from day to day, so that he could again without trouble
take up his customary occupation and manner of living. On
Friday, the 23d of January, he seemed vigorous and complained
of nothing. His appetite was good, his walk had agreed with him,
and he could attend to his work and his correspondence without
any exertion or fatigue. The greater was my surprise and grief
when I was called next morning to my dear father and found
that he had had a stroke. Even the first examination yielded a
sad prognosis. He was completely paralyzed on his left side,
and the whole left side of the body was without sensation or
motion. More distressing yet was the state of the lungs; also
no action could be perceived on the left side, so that the
respiration was continued but with difficulty and weakly by the
right lung. The pupil of the left eye was very much contracted
and insensible to the light. Despite the congestion to the
head, the sensory was almost undisturbed, so that he himself,
with his customary acute distinction of symptoms, emphasizing
clearly and correctly the characteristic signs, took part in the
selection of the remedies and in his own treatment. Though
the selected medicines very soon manifested their favorable
action, and improved the paralytic symptoms, causing a benefi-
cient warm perspiration, the state of the lungs did not allow us
to entertain any serious hopes. The energy of the respiratory
organs steadily diminished, the oedema gradually spread over a
larger extent of the lungs, the rattling and the stertorous breath-
ing rose up higher and became louder. Notwithstanding there
remained a pretty clear consciousness even to his dissolution,
"}
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
which took place almost imperceptibly after a steadily progres-
sive diminution of the respiration, in a quiet and gentle manner,
at 3.45 A. M., on January 26th.
Thus the dearly beloved head was taken from the midst of
his family, the head around which all the members had gath-
ered in joy and love; thus the aged champion of the only true
method of curing, to which for half a century he had devoted
almost all his powers, and who a few days before had still been
so sturdy and endowed with youthful vigor of spirit, suddenly
and unexpectedly lay before us a corpse. What feelings and
thoughts surged within me as I again and again, and finally
viewed the face of my good father, still so kindly and tran-
quil, even in death, for he had not only been my father but
also a grand teacher and master. Both his science and his
family have lost in him their most noble father!"
But this noble father will never be forgotten, we proclaim to
the mourning family, to lamenting science. Even though his
body may have returned to dust, his spirit will continue to live
in his works, the memory of his life will be an encouraging ex-
ample for all of us, and we all should determine to work just as
sedulously, as honestly and as faithfully on this great creation
of Hahnemann. May many such be found, so that the loss we
have suffered may not be felt too keenly!
And so receive, O, dear one, once more our heartfelt thanks
for your faithfulness, your loyalty and your self-sacrifice-and
from us personally our thanks for your affection which in your
great love you granted us. We knew how to value it and were
proud of it. Rest in peace.-MEYER.
In the Allg. hom Zeitung (vol. 68, p. 133) is the following:
Pulsatilla was the remedy through which the late Boening-
hausen was cured from a severe pulmonic disease, and which
converted him to Homœopathy.--DR GROSS.
The undersigned is especially personally grateful to B., for
through his labors alone was he enabled to establish the distin-
guishing characteristics of the remedies of our Materia Medica
which are akin in their actions in comparative diagnoses.-Dr.
H. GROSS.
Dr. Dunham, who was a great friend of Bonninghausen pub-
(6
OF HOMEOPATHY.
179
lished the following in the American Homœopathic Review for
April, 1864:
With deep sorrow we record the death of this distinguished
physician. For many years he was a warm personal friend of
Hahnemann. He was associated with Hahnemann's imme-
diate pupils, Stapf, Gross, Muhlenbein, Hartmann and Rückert,
in those early labors which placed Homoeopathy on an im-
moveable foundation as a practical method, he survived an inde-
fatigable laborer in the good cause, long after Hahnemann and
his pupils had all passed away.
To the day of his death he was in constant intercourse, by
correspondence or through the journals, with all the earnest
hard working younger homoeopathic practitioners. He was,
therefore, the link connecting the past generation of the Master,
and the active generation of to day, at once the venerable relic
of the former and a trusted leader of the latter.
And now this link is broken. The last 'Veteran of the
Old Guard" has gone to his rest. The genial voice is hushed
forever. The clear, serene and honest eye is closed. The
sagacious judgment which so rarely erred, the ever active brain
have ceased from their labors on earth. The kindly heart,
whose even beat no selfish impulse ever quickened, pulsates no
longer.
For us remain, for those who were his personal friends, a
deep and abiding sense of a great loss, for the profession in gen-
eral, the ripe fruits of his experience and scholarship in his
published works, and the bright example of his busy life.
Clemens Maria Franz, Baron von Bonninghausen, Doctor of
Civil and Criminal Laws and of Medicine, was born March 12,
1785, on the ancestral estate of Heringhaven in Overyssel, a
province of the Netherlands. His ancestors, whose names and
arms may be traced back into the thirteenth century and one of
whom was made an Austrian Field Marshal by Ferdinand II.,
in 1632, belonged to the oldest nobility of Westphalia and the
Rhine. Inasmuch, however, as for three hundred years past,
they had devoted themselves exclusively to the profession of
arms, their property always remained quite moderate in amount.
Von Bonninghausen's early youth was passed in the country,
where his bodily vigor was fostered by riding, swimming, hunt-
ing and other manly exercises, while his mental faculties were
(6
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
but sparingly cultivated. When, therefore, in his twelfth year
he entered the high school in Münster he found his place at the
foot of his classes. But his diligence during the first half year
was so great that, at the end of that period he had reached the
head, a position he always retained.
After remaining six years at this school, von Benninghausen
went to the University of Groningen, where he spent three
years, devoting himself not only to the studies proper to the
profession of law, to which he intended to devote himself but
also, and with great zest, to the study of Natural History and
of Medicine.
On the 30th of August, 1806, he received the degree of Doctor
of Civil and Criminal Laws, and about the 1st of October in the
same year he began his career as advocate.
This career was destined to be brief. In August, 1807, von
Bonninghausen accompanied his father to Utrecht, whither the
latter was sent as delegate from the Electoral Committee of
Overyssel to the then king of Holland, Louis Bonaparte (father
of Napoleon III.,) who at that time resided at Utrecht. Being
more familiar with the French language than his companions, the
young von Bonninghausen was admitted to the audience to act
as interpreter. In consequence of this circumstance he soon
received the quite unexpected appointment of Auditor to the
State Council. From this time on, his career at the Court of
Holland was a remarkably rapid one. Within a year he was
promoted over the heads of some colleagues much older than
himself, to the post of Auditor to the King, and a fortnight
afterwards to that of Secretaire gènèrale des requetes. This
laborious but influential office, to which were subsequently
added the duties of royal librarian and chief of the topographical
bureau, he continued to hold until the abdication of the King of
Holland, July 1, 1810.
After the loss of his very kind and benevolent chief, of whose
council he was the youngest member, under circumstances so
very painful to him, von Bonninghausen declined every position
that was offered him in the service of Holland, and returned in
1810 to the paternal estate to devote himself to the study of
agriculture and of the auxiliary sciences, especially that of
botany, which gradually became his favorite pursuit.
He married in 1812, and in 1814 removed to his inherited
OF HOMEOPATHY.
181
estate of Darop. Here he gradually entered into correspondence
with the most prominent agriculturists of Germany, especially
with Thær and Schwerz. Several essays from his pen appeared
in the Moglischen Annalen.
He endeavored by advice and example to improve the
agriculture of Westphalia. Among his efforts of this kind was
the founding of the Agricultural Society for the district of
Münster, which still exists in a more extended form and which
was the first association of the kind in the western part of the
Prussian Monarchy. On the organization of the Prussian prov-
inces of the Rhine and Westphalia in 1816, the position of Land-
rath for circle of Coesfeld, in which his estate of Darop lies, was
offered to von Bonninghausen. He accepted it and filled it
until 1822. During this period the necessity of an appraisement
of the two above-named provinces of the Rhine and Westphalia
was recognized, and von Bonninghausen being the only Land-
rath, was summoned to the conferences held on the subject at
Godesburg, near Bonn, in order that he might testify, as both a
theoretically and practically educated agriculturist, on the tech-
nclogy of the appraisements. He was subsequently, in 1822,
appointed General Commissioner of Appraisements for the two
provinces.
This new office involved almost constant traveling about in
these provinces; but this, again, gave him increased opportuni-
ties for the study of their flora. He published in 1824 a
"Prodromus Floræ Monasteriensis,” which contained much
that was new, and which showed the similarity between the
Westphalian flora and the English. At this time also was
entrusted to him the direction of the Royal Botanical Gardens
at Münster, which he conducted for many years and through
which he came into relations with many of the first botanists of
Europe. In consequence of his agricultural and botanical
writings, he received many diplomas from learned societies, and
C. Sprugel (Syst. veg., III., 245), and Reichenbach (Uebers.
des Gewachsreich, 197), awarded him the highest honor known
to a botanist, by each naming a genus of plants after him.
In the autumn of 1827, his health, which had hitherto been
very robust, became seriously impaired and his disease, which
was pronounced by two most distinguished physicians to be
purulent consumption, grew so rapidly worse that in the spring
+
;
182
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of 1828, all hope of his recovery was abandoned. This was the
first occasion of his acquiring a knowledge of Homœopathy.
Having given up all hope of recovery, he wrote a farewell letter
to his old and cherished botanical friend Dr. A. Weihe, of Her-
ford, who was a homoeopathic physician, the first in the whole
of Westphalia and the Rhine, a fact, however, of which Boen-
ninghausen was not aware, inasmuch as their frequent corres-
pondence had treated only of botanical subjects.
Weihe, much concerned at the intelligence of Bonning-
hausen's illness, requested an accurate description of the case,
expressing the hope that he might be the means of saving his
valuable friend through the aid of the newly discovered method
of cure. Bonninghausen complied with his request, followed
implicitly the directions he received, and gradually recovered, so
that, by the end of the summer, he was regarded as cured.
From this period he was not only a decided adherent, but an
active and earnest advocate of Homœopathy. After ineffectual
endeavors to arouse an interest on the subject among the phy-
sicians of Münster with whom he came into frequent intercourse
as member and one of the founders of the Medical Society, he
put his own hand to the work, revived the half-forgotten knowl-
edge of medicine acquired at the University of Groningen, and
had the good fortune to be of service to many who sought his
aid. He had not, however, a license to practice as a physician,
a fact which might have subjected him to many impediments and
disamenities had he undertaken to engage in a general medical
practice. For this reason, for a few years he expended his
energies to a great extent upon literary labors which had for
their object to study thoroughly the practical part of Homœo-
pathy and to facilitate and extend its application. At length so
generally were his learning and success acknowledged that, by
a cabinet order of His Majesty King Wilhelm IV., dated July
11th, 1843, all the rights and immunities of a practising physi-
cian were bestowed upon him.
It was during the former period, from 1828 to 1843, that most
of the systematic works, for which we are indebted to Bonning-
hausen, were composed and published. These were of a practical
nature, designed to aid the student of materia medica and the
physician at the bed-side. They were cordially received, were
preferred by Hahnemann to all others, and were used by him to
20
OF HOMEOPATHY.
183
the time of his death. They have served as models, originals,
or points of departure for most of the manuals, guides and reper-
tories that have been published. During this period, too, Bon-
ninghausen was a constant and prolific contributor to the Archiv,
of the new series of which, the Neues Archiv, he became associ-
ate editor along with Stapf, after the death of Gross; to the
Allgemeine homeopathische Zeitung and to the Homeopathe Belge.
In these labors and in the discharge of his functions as a prac·
titioner, his days were filled with honorable toil. His fame as
a successful practitioner and as the acknowledged master of our
Materia Medica, brought him many visitors from among profes-
sional men.
These his genial cordiality converted into warm
and steadfast friends. Advancing years dealt with him tenderly
and death has at last overtaken him at his post of duty, still
earnest in his labors, warm in his friendships and at peace with
God and man.
Bonninghausen was in constant correspondence with Hahne-
mann from 1830 till the death of the old master, and he more
than once permitted the writer to examine a large volume of let-
ters from Hahnemann, the last of which was written six weeks
before Hahnemann's death.
In 1848 he founded the Society of the Homoeopathic Physicians
of Westphalia and the Rhine, the yearly meetings of which still
continue. Almost every homoeopathic society has elected him a
member. The Homœopathic Medical College of Cleveland, in
1854, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Medi-
cine, and, on the 20th of April, 1861, the Emperor of the French,
Napoleon III., whom, when a boy, Bonninghausen then, Coun-
cilor to Louis of Holland, had known, made him Knight of the
Legion of Honor.
Of Bonninghausen's sever sons two have chosen the profes-
sion of medicine. The elder (Karl, born November 5th, 1826,)
after practising for a year or more in Westphalia, in his father's
neighborhood, where his success in treating a severe epidemic of
typhus demonstrated his possession of rare endowments and
great knowledge, is now settled in Paris under most fortunate
circumstances. He married the amiable adopted daughter of
Hahnemann's venerable widow. He resides with Madame
Hahnemann and has access to the literary relics of our illustri-
ous master. From these we may hope that, "in the fullness of
184
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
time," much that is most valuable and interesting will be made
public.
The second son Frederick (born April 14th, 1828,) had at first
determined to study law, and had actually made considerable
progress therein. The example of his brother, however, induced
him to abandon this profession for that of medicine.
He re-
paired to the University of Berlin, where after the usual period
of study, he graduated as his brother had done, with great dis-
tinction, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine with a
license to practice. Having up to this time paid little or no at-
tention to Homœopathy, he now returned to the paternal roof
for the purpose of watching the result of his father's practice,
and of comparing these results with those with which he had be-
come familiar in the allopathic hospitals in Berlin. He proposed,
after sufficient comparative observations of this kind, to make
his choice between Homoeopathy and Allopathy. The nature of
this choice could not be doubtful. His unqualified and enthusi-
astic preference was given to Homœopathy. After one year of
careful study he engaged in general practice near Münster, where,
we believe, he still resides.
It will be perceived, from the above sketch, that the life of our
friend and colleague was full of a diversified activity. In his
official employments, as well as in his agricultural and botanical
studies, he had always in view some well defined practical object,
and this was generally something of a beneficent character.
And when he began to labor in the field of homoeopathic medi-
cine, his energies were exerted in a corresponding direction.
Although deeply learned in ancient and modern philosophy, his
mind was essentially of a practical turn. Those subjects had
most attractions for him which presented the problem of definite
labor for definite results. The theories and speculations and
system-making, which have charms for many Homœopathists,
seemed to Bonninghausen to have but a secondary importance.
He perceived that the matter of prime necessity was such a
study of the materia medica as should bring out into bold relief
the characteristic peculiarities of each individual remedy, so
that the practitioner might easily and surely single out that
remedy which might be most similar in its symptoms to the
disease under treatment, To such a study be devoted himself.
The success of his practice is the measure of the success of these
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
185
studies as well as an indication of Bonninghausen's sagacity in
selecting this as the most important subject of study.
As a result of these studies he published a small work con-
taining the "Characteristics of Homoeopathic Remedies" and
also a "Concordance of the Relations of the Remedies to each
Other." About the same time he published his "Therapeutic
Pocket Book, or Manual for the Student of the Materia Medica
and for the Physician at the Bed-side," a work designed chiefly
to aid the student of the Materia Medica in following the course
which Bonninghausen had found so successful. He published
also a "Repertory of the Materia Medica," and which is on the
whole the best yet constructed. In these works Bonninghausen
brings prominently into view, the great importance of the
characteristic symptoms and the value of the conditions and
concomitants of the symptoms, as marks of individualization.
It may be remarked that the work on Characteristics" has
never been translated into English, a similar but immeas-
urably inferior book of Jahr's having been unhappily preferred
by the publishers. The "Therapeutic Pocket Book" was trans-
lated into French and into English. But Boenninghausen
pointed out to the writer the fact that the French translation
was so carelessly made that the lists of remedies in several cases
are placed under different headings from those under which they
properly belong, thus making the work a false guide. This was
done by Dr. Roth, the same who in his studies of materia medica
is now making such charges of inaccuracy and carelessness
against Hahnemann, and whom Dr. Hering has just convicted
of grossly careless misquotation in his remarks upon Sabadilla.
The English translation by Dr. Laurie has the same faults,
having been translated from the "improved French" translation,
and not from the original German. In America, two transla-
tions have appeared by Dr. Hempel and Dr. Okie.
Bonninghausen published also a little pamphlet on the
"Treatment of Intermittent Fever," which was translated by
Dr. Hempel.
"
In the last letter which the writer received from him, dated
November 9th, 1863, he says: "I have now in press, at Leipzig,
a treatise (as complete as possible) on the Treatment of Fevers,'
a new edition of my pamphlet on this subject published in 1833,
but not only considerably enlarged, but better arranged."
186
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
•
It is believed that he had nearly completed a work on the
"Treatment of Epilepsy," as well as a new and enlarged edition
of his "Repertory."
An essay on the treatment of "Whooping Cough” was pub-
lished in 1856. An English translation with additions is now
in the hands of the publisher.
A
The crowning literary work of his life, however, was that
which appeared early in 1863, the "Aphorisms of Hippocrates,
with the Glosses of a Homoeopathist," a large octavo volume so
full of learning and of sagacious observation as to have won en-
thusiastic commendation from the entire allopathic press.
French translation will soon appear at Brussels. Bonning-
hausen was anxious that the English translation should be
made and published in America, where he believed that Homo-
opathy had made greater and sounder progress than in England,
and, but for the disturbances in business occasioned by the ex-
isting war, it is probable the translation would already have ap-
peared. He desired that it should be preceded by a biograph-
ical sketch of the author, and it is from materials furnished him.
for the compilation of this sketch that the writer has derived the
data for the foregoing hasty memoir. The English translation
will be adorned by a finely engraved portrait, from a painting by
Roting in the possession of the writer.
Bonninghausen began to practice Homœopathy according to
the practical rules laid down by Hahnemann. When the high
potencies were first introduced, he, at the instigation of Gross,
began very cautiously to make experiments with them, first upon
domestic animals and afterwards, when encouraged by the re-
sults, very cautiously upon his patients. Seven years was de-
voted to these experiments, the results of which were always
recorded and carefully collated. Finally he became convinced
of the superiority of the higher over the lower potencies and for
twenty-two years, up to the time of his death, he used only the
high potencies, at last exclusively the 200th in all cases. It
was his custom to record every case for which he prescribed. In
1862, he informed the writer that he had just begun the 112th
volume of his "Clinical Record." Of these 112 volumes, it is
safe to estimate that at least eighty contain records of cases
treated almost exclusively with high potencies. A rich mine of
experience for the conscientious and intelligent explorer!
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
187
Bonninghausen adhered closely to Hahnemann's practical
rules in prescribing. He was careful never to repeat the remedy
until the effects of the dose already given were exhausted. He
thoroughly disapproved of alternation of remedies.
In a work on "Domestic Practice" by Lutze, Bonninghausen
has been referred to as recommending a combination of remedies.
This is utterly false. The writer has in his possession, and will
ere long publish, a letter in which he utterly denies any such
recommendation, expresses most hearty reprobation of the
practice and gives a history of the origin of the proposition to
combine two or more remedies in a single prescription.
On resigning the offices which he held under the Prussian
Government, Benninghausen removed to Münster, where he
built the house in which he lived when the writer visited him
and in which he died. In this house it was his custom to re-
ceive patients daily from 9 A. M. to 2 P. M. From 2 to 5 P. M.,
he spent in diversion, generally in walking about the suburbs,
or along the beautiful promenade which surrounds the city,
occupying the site of the former ramparts, or else in the Botani-
cal Garden attached to the Ducal Residence. It was in these
hours of relaxation that his genial social qualities, his wit and
his full and varied knowledge were seen to best advantage. The
writer will ever remember how, in course of one of these walks,
Bonninghausen, having gently rallied him on some evidences
of home sickness which he thought he had detected, gravely
told him that he would take him to see a compatriot who re-
sided in Münster. He accordingly led the way to the Botanical
Garden, and there, with charming courtly ceremony, presented
the writer to a stately Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera),
which he said he had imported from America forty years ago,
and which he said he believed was the only immigrant from the
United States in Westphalia.
His interest in the history and progress of Homoeopathy in
all parts of the world was very great. Especially was he in-
terested in its development in America, a country from which he
had received many tokens of esteem and admiration.
On receiving a copy of the volume of "Transactions of the
Homœopathic Medical Society of the State of New York," pub-
lished in 1863 by the Legislature of the State, he expressed
great pleasure, using the following language:
188
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
"I have been very agreeably surprised by the progress of
Homœopathy in your country. Your Government, indeed, does
not cease to favor everything which is truly salutary to man-
kind. In truth it may well serve as a model for all other Govern-
ments. Its merit is all the greater, in that the calamity of war
does not hinder it from extending a protecting hand over the
public weal."
W
Thus, active, earnest in every good work, filling with honor
positions of high public trust, but devoting his faculties with
equally conscientious fidelity to the cure of peasant and noble,
indifferent to nothing that concerns the welfare of mankind, ever
ready to point out to the seeker after knowledge the paths which
he had himself so successfully trodden, thus lived, trusted,
honored and beloved this distinguished physician and christian
gentleman who has now gone to his rest.-D.
In the same copy of the Review Dr. Lippe writes of his friend:
DR. VON BENNINGHAUSEN.
BY AD. LIPPE, M. D., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
The sad news has reached us that again one of the veterans of
Homœopathy has left. On the 26th day of February, the good
and noble Baron Clemens Maria Franz von Bonninghausen, died
at Münster, at the age of 79 years. How can we prepare a
merited monument to our departed colleague?
Bonninghausen leaves as a legacy to posterity his manifold
writings and elaborate works. Among these he has given us,
before closing his earthly career, a lasting evidence of his vast
learning and acquirements, of his very thorough appreciation
and understanding of Homœopathy, in his last and great gift,
his "Aphorisms of Hippocrates," with notes by a Homœop-
athist. So overwhelming was the effusion of his learning
throughout this work that even the medical journals of the
opposition found themselves compelled to praise his profound
abilities. Bonninghausen devoted his whole life to Homœop-
athy and the further development of the science. As a friend
and pupil of Hahnemann his unbounded admiration increased
daily by his intercourse with him, and after the great Master's
death he studied all his writings, and by these he became still
more penetrated by and convinced of the truth of Hahnemann's
observations and the great work accomplished by him. Follow-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
189
ing Hahnemann's doctrines and guided by them he developed
Homœopathy. His intimate knowledge of our Materia Medical
is evident and indisputably proved in every page of his “Rela-
tions," "Repertory," and "Pocket Book." His great conscien-
tious accuracy is admired by all who consult his writings and
valuable works, and those who, like myself, have had the honor
and happiness of a delightful intimacy with him will often recall
the charm of his ever instructive conversation, his unparalleled
simplicity of manner and the goodness of heart of this most ex-
cellent man.
-
While he leaves us all these gifts we may well ask ourselves
what would be the best mode of preparing the monument which
this great man has merited by the service he has rendered to
progressive Homœopathy, and thereby to suffering humanity?
Our departed colleague has pointed out how he had wished to
prepare the well deserved monument of our master-Hahne-
mann-and I here quote from one of his excellent articles,
written soon after Hahnemann's death and translated for and
published in the Homeopathic Examiner, for 1846, Vol. IV.
His text is on "The Three Precautionary Rules of Hahnemann,"
he says, "unless the signs deceive me, we are now at the com-
mencement of a new epoch, marked by the death of our Master,
whose genius hovers around us, an epoch when the excrescences
shall have been chopped off and the genuine metal separated
from the dross. Let us henceforth be more firmly united, all of
us who desire the good, but let us exclude from our ranks with
unrelenting severity any one who sneers at the good cause,
schismatics and all those who attempt substantiating opinions
and bypotheses for careful observations. But let us at the same
time honor the memory of the great reformer in medicine, by
subjecting his doctrines, results of fifty years' observations to re-
peated and comprehensive examinations and trials, and by can-
didly communicating our experience one to another. This would
be the best mode of preparing the monument which the great man
has merited by the services he has rendered to suffering human-
ity."
Bonninghausen by this illustrates and endorses the three
precautionary rules of Hahnemann.
The happy epoch which he then anticipated has not yet come,
the conditions he points out by which this epoch may be ushered
190
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in with certainity, "the chopping off of the excrescences, the
separation of the genuine metal from the dross with unrelenting
severity," these have not yet been fulfilled, but unless the signs
of the times deceive me, this condition is now being consum-
mated, and the desired happy epoch must soon come.
The three precautionary rules of Hahnemann, the results of
fifty years' experience, and now also the rules of Bonninghausen,
would form a good basis for experiments to be subjected to re-
peated and comprehensive examinations, and trials, and the re-
sults thereof candidly communicated one to another; by so do-
ing we can prepare the best and lasting monument to this great
and good man, and thus by a desired and decided union, meet
his wishes and honor his memory by honoring the memory of
our great master.
Puhlmann says that Dr. Carl von Bonninghausen (born 1777,
died 1862) was a contemporary of Jahr. He published, as
early as 1832, a "Repertory of Antipsoric Remedies," and later
"Homœopathic Therapeutics of Intermittent Fevers," "Hom-
œopathy, a Manual for the Public," and other works. His most
important work (long out of print) is the "Pocket-book for
Homœopathic Physicians, for Clinical Use and for the Study of
the Materia Medica Pura." He established, in 1846, the Society
of Homœopathic Physicians of Rhineland and Westphalia. In
1860, at the age of 83, he issued his "Aphorisms of Hippocrates
with Comments by a Homœopathist." Like Jahr, he adhered to
all of Hahnemann's dogmas, and especially to the theory of
potentization. He prescribed almost exclusively the 200th
potency.
THE WORKS OF BENNINGHAUSEN.
"The Cure of Cholera and its Preventatives," according to
Hahnemann's latest communication to the author.
1831.
Repertory of the Antipsoric Medicines," with a preface by
Hahnemann with respect to the repetition of the dose of a rem-
edy. 1832.
(6
'Summary View of the Chief Sphere of Operation of the
Antipsoric Remedies and of their Characteristic Peculiarities, as
an Appendix to their Repertory."
1833.
"An Attempt at a Homoeopathic Therapy of Intermittent
Fever." 1833.
((
•
S
OF HOMEOPATHY.
191
"Contributions to a Knowledge of the Peculiarities of Homo-
opathic Remedies." 1833.
"Homœopathic Diet and a Complete Image of a Disease."
For the non-professional public.
1833.
""
1835.
Homœopathy, a Manual for the Non-Medical Public." 1834.
"Repertory of the Medicines which are not Anti-Psoric."
"Attempt at Showing the Relative Kinship of Homoeopathic
Medicines." 1836.
"Therapeutic Manual for Homœopathic Physicians," for use
at the sick-bed and in the study of the Materia Medica Pura.
1846.
'Brief Instruction for Non-Physicians as to the Prevention
and Cure of Cholera." 1849.
"The Two Sides of the Human Body and Relationships."
Homœopathic studies. 1853.
"The Hom. Domestic Physician in Brief Therapeutic Diag-
noses." An attempt.
An attempt. 1853.
"The Homœopathic Treatment of Whooping Cough in its
Various Forms."
1860.
"The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, with Notes by a Homœo-
path." 1863.
"Attempt at a Homœopathic Therapy of Intermittent and
Other Fevers," especially for would-be Homoeopaths. Second
augmented and revised edition. Part 1. The Pyrexy. 1864.
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 22, p. 351. Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 4, Þ.
433. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 36. Kleinert, 314. Lute's Fl.
Blatter, Feb. 24, 1864. Med. Couns., vol. II, p. 492. All. hom.
11,
Zeit., vol. 68, pp. 56, 64, 133. Rapou, vol. 2.)
BOHLER. Dr. Bohler, of Plauen, died January 2, 1878.
Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy, at Plauen, Saxony.
The name is on both the Zeitung and Quin lists. (Allg. hom.
Zeit. vol., 96, p. 16. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik, vol. 27, p. 15.)
BONDINI. According to the list of Quin published in 1834,
Bondini was practicing Homœopathy at that date in Civitella
del Tronto, Italy.
BONNET. Bonnet's name is in Quin's list of 1834, when he
was at Lyons.
192
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
BONNET. This is another practitioner whom Quin gives as
being in practice in 1834 at d'Amberieux.
DE BONNEVAL, HENRI. The Bibliotheque Homeopathique
for July 10, 1882, contains the following: We have lost one of
the veterans of our old guard-Comte Henri de Bonneval, who
was taught by Hahnemann himself in the principles of our new
doctrine. He died at his chateau, La Tresne, near Bordeaux.
His graciousness, scientific renown and charity had given him
for years an exceptional position in his vicinity.
He came from a noble family and an ancient, who had long
been distinguished for service to the State and the King. It
was about 1825 or 1826 that he completed his preparatory
studies. He was arrested in his career by a malady which even
threatened his life, and cured against all expectation by a cele-
brated physician who had introduced a new and strange method;
he decided to study medicine and embrace the doctrine by which
his health had been restored. He was a practitioner for fifty
years. He was very good to the poor. He held consultations
at his different houses, and demanded nothing from his poor
people. He gave a great deal away in charity. A eulogy by
M. de Larson may be found in the Bibliotheque Homeopathique.
(Bibl. Hom., vol. 13, p. 412. Vol. 14, p. 55.)
BONORDEN, THIL. HEINRICH. Was a contributor to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was settled in
Herford in the Prussian Province of Westphalia. In the Zeitung
list of 1832, and the Quin list of 1834, he is located at Her-
norda.
BORCHARD. In 1834 was practicing Homœopathy at Bor-
deaux, France. His name appears on the Quin list of 1843.
BORMANN. July 27, 1857, Dr. Bormann, of Grimma, is
dead. He had carcinoma of the rectum. Was an early practi-
tioner of Homœopathy in Grimma, Saxony. The name is on
both the Zeitung list of 1832, and Quin's of 1834. (Allg. hom.
Zeit., vol. 54, p. 184.)
BOURGES. Was one of the early homoeopathic practitioners
at Bordeaux, France. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 152.)
BRAND, C. P. Brand's name appears in the list of contribu-
tors to the Hahnemann Jubilee, as Doctor of Medicine and Cor-
W
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
193
responding Member of Joseph Medico-Chirurgical Academy of
Vienna, regimental physician of the 35th infantry regiment, at
Pilsen, in Bohemia. It is also in the Zeitung list of 1832.
BRAUN, MAXIMILIAN. Was born in Achdorf, near
Landshut, Bavaria, on October 12th, 1751. He studied
medicine in Vienna in the time of Stoll and on his recom-
mendation, he attended, after his graduation a rich English-
man, who had been directed by Stoll to take a sea voyage, acting
in the capacity of companion and attendant physician. Braun
journeyed over the seas for a considerable time with his invalid,
and as the latter drove away the ennui of a long sea voyage by
working at his lathe, Braun learned from him the art of turn-
ing. The later operations of Braun in the department of mechan-
ics show his predominantly developed impulse to building (to
speak phrenologically), and the mechanical operations of surgery
owe to him many improvements-yea, even new inventions.
Having returned from his voyage, Braun entered into the mili-
tary service of Austria, during which he served in several cam-
paigns and finally advanced to the rank of surgeon of the staff in
garrison and of Imperial Councilor. A sort of hammock for
patients with broken bones-a very serviceable sick-bed for
severe diseases, or such where the patient for a long time
is forbidden to move his body-various splints and trusses dis-
tinguished for their simplicity and ingenious construction, have
made the name of Braun famous in surgery. Various pamphlets,
describing these contrivances, written by Braun and others, have
been published.
-
His acquaintance with Homopathy, Braun, as well as the de-
ceased Forgo, myself, and many other older Homœopaths of
Hungary, owed to the regimental surgeon, Dr. Mueller-our
Nestor-equally distinguished as man and as physician. In the
year 1823 Braun came, on official business, to Totis, where Dr.
Mueller was stationed with his regiment. Braun undertook to
reprove Dr. Mueller because he had heard of him that he gave
"to all his patients one and the same sort of drops." Mueller
met him very frankly, and also took the trouble of explaining to
him the uniformity of his "drops." Braun listened to him in
great surprise and asked for books, so as to examine the matter
more closely, and—the seed fell on fruitful ground, and for fif
teen years-i. e., till the death of Braun-it brought fair fruit
194
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in the healing of many thousands of patients. I need not adduce
any other proof of the uprightness and love for truth of Braun
but the one fact that he in the advanced age of 72 years still
entered on the study of Homoeopathy. The homoeopathic
pharmacy furnished a very suitable occupation for the mechan.
ical genius of Braun. By his trusses he had become well
acquainted with many ruptured persons, which gave him fre-
quent opportunity for trying and proving the homoeopathic
method of cure on such patients, as I have reported elsewhere.
In Comorn, where he lived after his appointment as staff sur-
geon, he was so frequently called upon by the peasants of all the
surrounding villages, that he treated several thousands of such
patients every year. These (poor) people who paid their good-
natured doctor with eggs, flax, fruit, copper money, etc., will
much lament his decease.
Braun died in Comorn on November 17th, 1838, of old age.
He was of strong and large build, and in his features had a
strong resemblance to Hahnemann. This resemblance was
much heightened by a baldness of similar dimensions. The
Hahnemann medal might well have passed for Braun's medal.
His leisure hours he passed at his work-bench. Till his death
he himself sawed all the wood he burned, both summer and
winter. The simplicity of his mode of living, which dated from
his campaigning, was almost cynical. In one kettle was his
soup, beef and rice, or some other farinacious food—viola tout,
the same day after day. This kettle was brought to him punct-
ually at 12 o'clock; wherever Braun might be standing, there
his dinner was served to him. No table was set; he ate his soup
from a small dish, then instead of a plate, there was handed him
a square, very cleanly kept piece of board, on which he cut his
meat, eating it with salt and bread. After his dinner, he at
once went to work again, and if we except an hour's walk, he
took no rest. In his last years his feet refused their service,
while the rest of the body remained in its undiminished vigor.
In order that he might nevertheless take the fresh air he had a
small, light carriage made for himself, in which a young and
sturdy attendant pulled him about.
•
He so much honored Hahnemann that the only reason of his
getting annoyed at his age was because this prevented him from
making a journey to Hahnemann "that he might see the cover-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
195
ing in which this sublime, glorious spirit dwelt." As to myself,
the good old man always treated me with particular affection
and both in conversation and in letters he always called me his
"dear son."
Braun's death took place during my fatal years of
roving, when bad people of every kind endeavored to spoil my
career, pushing me northward when I desired to go southward,
and to the south when I wished to go northward-otherwise I
would not have failed to have performed the last loving service
to my dear old friend, and to have wept at his pulseless heart as
a last unction to him.
*
Braun's name appears as one of the contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. Also it is on the Zeitung list of
1832, and that of Quin of 1834. Braun in the Hahnemann list
has a number of titles, staff physician, corresponding member
of the Medico-Chirgical Academy Joseph in Vienna, etc., etc.,
at Comorn in Hungary. (Kleinert, 339. Archiv. f. d. hom.
Heilk., vol. 20, pp. 3, 165. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 77, p. 200.
Rapou, vol. 1, p. 124. Vol. 2, p. 243.)
BRAUN, (Rome). Dr. Ladelci says: Dr. Braun, a dilettante
in medicine treated in Rome in the year 1833, cases with homœo-
pathic remedies. (Brit. Jour Hom., vol. 4, p. 458.
BRAVAIS, Junior. Was in 1834, practicing Homeopathy
at Annonay, France. The name is on the Quin list of 1834.
BRAVAIS, Senior. Bravais's name appears on the Quin
list of 1834, at which time he was practicing Homœopathy at
Annonay, a town in France, in the department of Ardache.
BRIXHE. Was an early Homoeopath, of Brussels.
BRUGGER, IGNATIUS. Was born at Upper-Eichel, Ober-
Amt Schopheim, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, July
31, 1809. His father died when he was two years old, and his
*For several years I have endeavored to gather information as to our de-
parted colleague, until after much correspondence. I succeeded in collect-
ing the few data given above. In the last years I find that we have be-
come more indifferent to one another. Though I cannot make this re-
proach to myself. Whomever I have loved, I may indeed learn to hate,
but he can never become quite indifferent to me. A rose-colored letter
from Stapf, full of brightness and love, a greeting from Hahnemann, the
mere word "Homœopathy," encountered in a book that is not medical,
can electrify me now, as it did fifteen years ago. (Written without signa-
ture, perhaps by Gross.)
196
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
mother six years later. When about six years of age the orphan
was sent to the day school which he attended for five years; he
then hired himself to a farmer for his bread and clothes, remain-
ing with him until fifteen, at which time he for several months
received lessons in German, French and Latin languages from a
teacher in Rheinfelden, Switzerland. In November, 1826, he
entered the Gymnasium at Freiburg, Baden, and there he re-
mained until April, 1827. He then entered the Lyceum at
Constance, Baden, and there pursued his studies for two and a
half years; after which he went to the University at Freiburg:
there he attended lectures on philosophy, medicine, surgery and
obstetrics, until April, 1834, when his course of study being at
an end he came to America, arriving in New York in October,
1834. He at once sought out Dr. Detwiller, of Hellertown, Pa.,
who received him kindly, and invited him to study Homo-
opathy with him, and to assist him in his practice. He accepted
the generous offer and remained with Dr. Detwiller several
months, and then commenced practice in Bucks county near
Quakertown, but soon removed to Sheppardsvill and not long
after went to Philadelphia, where he remained but a few months.
In January, 1838, he located in New Berlin, Union county,
where meeting with more success, he remained until 1856, when
he established himself at Lewisburg, and was for two years
associated with Dr. J. F. Harvey. In January, 1842, he
married Miss Mary M. Smith, of New Berlin. He passed the
rest of his life in Lewisburg, at which place he died. (World's
Con. vol. 2, p. 762. Cleave's Biography).
BRUNNOW, ERNST GEORGE VON. Was a contributor
to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he lived in
Dresden. As he was not a physician, his name is not in the
Zeitung nor Quin lists. He was, however, of immense influence
on the early propagation of Homœopathy. In the British
Journal for April, 1847, is the following: Ernst George von
Brunnow, born at Dresden, the 6th of April, 1796, died there
the 5th of May, 1845. Though not a medical man, Von Brun-
now has rendered essential services to the cause of Homœopathy
by his literary labors, in connection with the subject. Of a
noble Courland family, he began in 1829 to devote himself to
the study of philosophy and law. His indifferent health pre-
vented him pursuing this path, and he confined himself to the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
197
He en-
cultivation of the lighter departments of literature.
joyed considerable reputation as a novelist, his "Troubadour "
and "Ulrick von Hutten," being still popular. Failing to
obtain relief from his bodily sufferings from Allopathy, he put
himself under Hahnemann's treatment, and obtained such bene-
fit as convinced him of the excellence and truth of the Homœo-
pathic system, and converted him into an ardent champion of
the cause. He translated into the French language the
Organon" and several other of Hahnemann's lesser works,
and had a considerable share in the Latin translation of the
Materia Medica Pura. His last work in connection with Homo-
opathy is a small pamphlet entitled, "Ein Blick auf Hahne-
mann und die Homöopathik." Leipzig, 1844. We cannot better
sum up this brief notice of him than in the words of his German
biographer-His whole nature evinced profound feeling, and his
melancholy, dark, brilliant eyes betokened clearness of intellect
and the noblest of hearts. Without guile, firm and true in his
friendship, sympathizing, unselfish, with an enthusiasm for the
beautiful and the sublime, such is our recollection of the noble,
the departed Ernst von Brunnow.
Rapou says that he was a rich man, with leisure and great
talent for writing. He devoted himself entirely to the new
doctrines. He prepared an excellent exposition of Homœo-
pathy for men of the world and translated the " Organon" into
French.
CC
Stapf thus writes of him: If every one who has labored with
active love for the internal and external development of Homœo-
pathy has a just claim to our grateful recognition, and this,
whether he be physician or laymen, then Ernst von Brunnow
has quite especially merited to be lovingly mentioned in this
journal, and that we should erect a simple memorial to his
memory.
Brunnow was born in Dresden, from a very honorable family
of Courland on April 6th, 1796, and died in the same city on
the 5th of May, 1845. Having been sickly from his earliest child-
hood, he was most carefully educated at home until he, in the year
1819, devoted himself in Leipzig to the study of philosophy and
jurisprudence, and later on he prepared himself in the Bureau
of Justice in Dresden for a higher official position. Increasing
bodily ailments, however, soon compelled him to give up this
198
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
course, and being favored by fortunate external circumstances
he lived to himself and his literary undertakings. An honor-
able testimony as to what he attempted and succeeded in with
regard to the field of belles-lettres, where he was quite at home.
is afforded to us in a collection of poems, several excellent
novels, and especially some very valuable historical novels,
among which the "Troubadour" and "Ulrich von Hutton'
deserve especial mention.
But he was destined to become useful to science and human-
ity also in another manner. The severe bodily sufferings to
which he was subjected, and for which he had not even a pallia-
tive in Allopathy made him try Homœopathy, and this new
method of healing, as administered by the hands of Hahne-
maun himself, succeeding in essentially improving his condition
and in making it at least tolerable. He went through the same
experiences as other excellent men in similar circumstances.
Overcome by the deep truth of Homoeopathy and by the bless-
ings which it can bestow on mankind when rightly administered
he not only became its most zealous friend and votary, but he
also endeavored after he had most fully became acquainted with
its essentials and with its literature, and had made friends with its
most distinguished adherents, to contribute with all his strength
by words and deeds to its more general acceptance. For this pur-
pose he translated several works of Hahnemann, the "Organon "
and his pamphlet on coffee, etc., into the French language. For
this task he was better prepared than many others by his perfect
knowledge of that language. Von Brunnow also took an active
part in translating the Materia Medica Pura into Latin.
Only those who worked with him and who have carefully
watched the progress of Homœopathy can rightly appreciate
how much he has contributed to it by his excellent trans-
lations into French, and by some smaller works about Hom-
œopathy which he wrote himself. He also made good use
of his manifold social relations in circles which were as dis-
tinguished as they were extensive, so as to defend Homœopathy,
which was then so little known and so much misjudged.
During the last years of his life, solely in consequence of ex-
ternal influences, he had become favorably disposed to a ten-
dency to Homœopathy, which in consequence of its peculiar
scientific appearance might well appeal to his susceptible spirit,
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
199
but which widely differs from true and pure Homœopathy, as he
formerly knew and acknowledged it; this tendency, however,
unless all signs of the times are deceptive, will probably prove
but a passing phantom, which will soon again give place to
the old and eternal truth. In this spirit he also wrote his last
homœopathic pamphlet: "A Glance at Hahnemann and Homœ-
opathy, etc." (1844.) Part of the contents of this composition
we would willingly excuse with Goethe's saying: "Man will
err as long as he strives." In concluding this simple memorial,
we would quote the words of another biographer of our beloved
friend, because they are as true as they are beautiful, and as
suitable as if they had come from my own soul, so that I would
not know how to describe him more suitably: "His whole being
showed a warm sentiment; from his melancholy dark-shining
eyes, clearness of spirit, and a most noble heart beamed forth.
Without guile, firm and faithful in friendships, sympathetic, self-
sacrificing, enthusiastic for everything beautiful and great-this
is the image of the noble departed Ernst von Brunnow, as it
lives in our souls. Ave cara anima !—E. STAPF.
A writer in the Zeitung says: In the night from the 4th to the
5th of May, 1845, died at Dresden, after several weeks of suffer-
ing, Baron Ernst Georg von Brunnow, well-known to the friends
of the reformed healing art by his translation into French of
Hahnemann's Organon, with a very readable preface prefixed to
it, entitled Exposé de la Reforme de l'Art Médicale; by his French
translation of Hahnemann's pamphlet on coffee, and by his co-
operation in the Latin translation of the Materia Medica Pura,
undertaken in common with the Drs. Stapf and Gross; and finally
by his work: "A Glance at Hahnemann and Homœopathy."
He was born April 6th, 1796, at Dresden, and was the oldest
son of a Saxon officer in a high position, who came from Cour-
land. He lost his father when very young, but he enjoyed
until two years ago, the life and presence of his beloved noble
mother. In the years 1815-19 he studied law at Leipzig, and
was afterward for a short time assessor in a Government office at
Dresden. But he soon left the civil service owing to ill health,
and labored for his fellowmen in the advancement of the good
and the beautiful through literary works. As an author, he be-
came known through his "Epos and Lyra," his "Troubadour,"
his "Ulrich von Hutten," and his "Oberst von Carpezan."
200
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
His zeal for truth, and his endeavors to advance art and the
sciences for the common good of humanity, endeared him to all
his friends. For Homœopathy, he worked with a self-sacri-
ficing love, and he was ever a zealous promoter of the same,
though withal with a good common sense. His talents kept
equal pace with his zeal; he was one of those highly gifted
authors, who labor and create from an internal impulse. (Brit.
Jour. Hom. vol. 5, p. 253. Kleinert, 149, 165. Archiv f. d.
hom. Heilk., vol. 22, pt. 2, p. 186. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 29,
p. 32. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 86.)
BRUTZER. The Zeitung contains the following: On March
5, 1877, at Riga, at the age of eighty-four, State Councilor and
Chevalier Dr. Brutzer, for a long time a homoeopathic physician.
Bojanus, writing for the World's Convention of 1876, says
that Dr. Brutzer, of Riga, in 1833, made a bold stand in favor
of the new system. He put the question openly to a medical
society of which he was a member, "Is it becoming in a con-
scientious physician under present circumstances to refuse to
study Homœopathy?" Two years later he repeated the ques-
tion and quoted cases from his own homoeopathic practice.
This created much commotion and Dr. Brutzer resigned from the
society. Persecution followed, but he gained a strong party
among the more intelligent of the public, who presented him
with a large silver cup in acknowledgment of his fearless
championship. Since then both he and the system he defended
have derived advantage from his great talents, noble character,
and enormous activity, and full of years and memories of an
honorable life, he still lives at Riga.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Amongst the men whose names and works are part of the his-
tory of Homoeopathy, Brutzer occupies a prominent position.
He was dissatisfied with the scientific arguments propounded in
the Organon. He held that the essence of Homœopathy does
not rest on the use of medicines producing like symptoms but
like conditions. He would replace "Similia similibus curentur”
by "Idem efficientibus eodem debellantur." and the name Hom-
œopathy by Isocraty or Isonergy. But whatever the value of
such criticisms as these, he entertained some just views on the
condition of the Materia Medica, which he characterized as de-
fective, since it contains mostly subjective symptoms; paying no
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
201
heed to the anatomical, pathological and chemical changes pro-
duced in the organism. To this imperfection he attributed the
frequent want of success of homoeopathic remedies, and con-
sidered it to be the source of the famous psora theory. He
urged the reproving of remedies, with a studious regard to
pathological anatomy, the aid of chemical analysis, and the light
derived from experiments with animals with poisonous doses.
Thus, he thought, we should learn the general characteristics of
remedies, and by a proper classification of 'them, materially aid
the selection of the proper remedy in a given case.
In 1836 there appeared in the German St. Petersburger Zeitung,
No. 32, an article signed by two allopathic physicians, Drs.
Seidlitz and Weisse, announcing that the St. Petersburg Society
of Corresponding Physicians proposed to give a prize of fifty
Dutch ducats for an essay. The announcement was as follows:
"The St. Petersburg Society of Corresponding Physicians,'
starting from the conviction that all cases of disease treated
homœopathically are only examples of the natural course of
morbid conditions in the organism, such as rational physicians
can rarely see, and that only when they abstain from treatment,
wished: That the histories of cases contained in the whole hom-
œopathic literature should be reviewed, critically elucidated and
arranged, so that the course of development of whole classes and
genera of diseases, as also of particular diseases, should be ex-
hibited in the clearest possible way; the result of these re-
searches must be compared with the normal development of
disease in the Hippocratic sense. At the same time the phe-
nomena which usually precede the favorable as well as the un-
favorable termination of diseases treated homoeopathically as
also the metaschematisms of morbid affections are to be promi-
nently exhibited. At the same time all polemics against Homœo-
pathy as a system, and against homoeopathic practitioners, were
to be avoided and the prize was to be awarded to the essay
which should most fulfill the expectations of the society.
This remarkable offer was ridiculed by the Homoeopaths, and
even some allopathic writers said it was unscientific and did not
deserve notice. The prize was awarded the following year to a
Dr. Simson, of Breslau, who, in the preface of his treatise,
declares that he has written with the "purest scientific inten-
tions, and with the deepest abhorence of everything which has
""
C
202
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
the slightest relation to Homoeopathy," declarations which evi-
dently touched the hearts and opened the collective purse of the
"Society" to the prize-seeker.
Dr. Brutzer then offered a prize of 100 Dutch ducats for an
essay that should give a fair and scientific statement, and eluci-
dation of the cases of disease published in homoeopathic works,
and draw logical inferences from them, even should these, far
from fulfilling the expectations of the Society go directly counter to
them. Brutzer appointed a committee of five foremost members
of the medical faculty to award the prize, and named two years
as the limit of competition. He advertised the offer extensively.
Essays were sent to Brutzer from Goullon, Sr., of Weimer, and
Dr. Heubel, of Wulk. Heubel got the prize, but his essay was
not published. Goullon was not satisfied, and Brutzer wrote
that he only offered the prize as a demonstration against the
allopathic society, and wondered that any one could take his
offer in earnest. Dr. Heubel then wrote that he had got the
fifty ducats paid him. Brutzer wrote a work published in Riga
in 1838: Attempt at a Scientific Foundation of the Homœopathic
Principle. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 94, p. 96. World's Con., vol.
2, pp. 255, 263. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38, pp. 310, 315.)
BUONGIOVANNI, LUIGI. Quin gives this man as sur-
geon to the military hospital of the king of Sicily, in his list of
1834.
BURDACH. Both the Zeitung list of 1832 and the the Quin
list of 1834, locate this man at Triebel.
BUSSY. Quin gives the name in his list of 1834 as Bussy,
Professor Chemiæ, Paris.
BUTE, GEORGE HENRY. The following was published
in the Hahnemannian Monthly at the time of his death:
George Henry Bute was born in the Duchy of Schaumburg
Lippe Bueckeburg, on the 20th of May, 1792. During the latter
period of French dominion in Germany, he was obliged to leave
his parental roof in order to escape military conscription. He
then led a roving life for several years, serving, for instance, on
a Dutch man-of-war. He visited during this service the southern
parts of Europe, even Constantinople, deserted at Genoa, trav-
ersed all Germany on foot, and embarked for the United States,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
203
where he landed at Philadelphia in August, 1819. He obtained
a situation with and worked for some time in the then fanious
garden of Mr. Pratt; got acquainted with the Moravians through
their bishop, R. Rud. Herman, and entered, in 1822, the Mora-
vian Boarding School at Nazareth, Pa., called Nazareth Hall, as
teacher. He married, at Nazareth, Miss Mary Bardill, daughter
of a Moravian missionary, in April, 1825, returned to Philadel-
phia, where he was employed in a store until after the arrival
from Germany of his younger brother Charles, when the two
started a sugar refinery. In 1828 he received a special commis-
sion to proceed to Surinam (Dutch Guiana) as a missionary, and
accordingly departed for that country. Being stationed in the
city of Paramaribo, he became acquainted with Dr. Constantine
Hering, who, having been sent there by the Saxon government
as botanist and geologist, was practising Homoeopathy also.
Young Bute placed himself under Dr. Hering's tuition, studied.
with great zeal and enthusiasm, but was obliged, on account of
feeble health, to return, in 1831, to the United States. He landed
in Boston and proceeded to Nazareth, to perfect himself in his
chosen and much-loved profession. He soon went to Philadel-
phia, where the Asiatic cholera had broken out in a virulent
form, and in the treatment of which he met with great success,
and demonstrated the truth of Hahnemann's system.
He acquired a widespread reputation and great practice, and
was joined in 1833 by his friend, Dr. Hering, from Paramaribo,
and they worked together for some time. Soon his health
gave way, and after six years of active service in Philadelphia
he was obliged to withdraw to the country, and again selected
Nazareth, which was his residence up to the time of his
decease. He never ceased to labor by writing, experimenta-
tion, and practice, to advance the great cause of Homœop-
athy. The death of his faithful partner, his wife, in 1869,
affected him very deeply, and he began to show signs of failing
strength in body, his mind and intellect, however, remaining
bright and clear. He failed rapidly from the commencement of
last winter, and it soon became plain that his days were num-
bèred. At the beginning of last November he visited his much-
loved garden for the last time (he was an enthusiastic friend of
gardening), and from the latter part of that month he never left
his room or bed, until he passed away to his eternal rest, at the
204
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
age of 83 years, 8 months, 23 days, after a long and tedious, and
often very painful and distressing, sickness, with sleepless nights
and restless days, on February 13th, 1876.
The following notes as to Dr. Bute's contributions direct to
Homœopathy, were kindly furnished by his old friend and
colleague, Dr. C. Hering:
He was the first prover of the indigenous plants, Sanguinaria
Canadensis, Cistus Canadensis, Chimaphila umbellata, Chimaphila
maculata, Rhus venenata, and Rhus glabra. He also proved Rhus
tox. and Rhus radicans, and made comparisons of the different
Rhus. He was the introducer of the West Indian Moncinella,
and made some of the provings of Juglans cinerea. He proved
Sarracenia asimina and Ustilago maidis in 1840. He made
provings of Cypripedium humile and Phallus impudicus.
A lady whom he had cured with Daphne mezereum, on being
told the remedy, handed him from her flower pot a twig of the
Daphne Indica, with the request that he would prove it. He did
so, and it has been of great use in many cases.
He contributed to the Allentown provings of Lachesis, Me-
phitis, Calcarea phosphorica mixta and basica. Some of his
symptoms of Alum he sent to Hahnemann, who inserted them
in his Chronic Diseases. He also observed valuable symptoms
of Conium maculatum.
A Baptist minister from Canada, suffering from an old inter-
mittent, for which he had taken all that the old school and
Homœopathy, as far as tried, could furnish, applied to Dr. Bute
for relief. General anasarca having set in, he asked, in his
extremity, for a tincture to prove. Bute, remembering that his
mother had always been in the habit of carefully pouring away
the water in which she had boiled eggs, because, she said,
"people got the fever from such water,,' and recollecting once
having witnessed a cure of intermittent in a man who opened an
egg and poured brandy into one-half of the shell and drank it
off, he now proceeded to make a tincture by breaking a newly
laid egg, taking away the yolk and greater part of the white,
and putting the rest in a bottle with alcohol. This albumen ovi,
as it was called, made a complete cure of the clergyman's inter-
mittent, and has been found of great service in many desperate
cases since.
In a letter concerning himself Dr. Bute says: "I am a native
OF HOMEOPATHY.
205
of North Germany and was born May 27th, 1792. In the year
1829, I received a special commission to proceed to Surinam
(Dutch Guiana), and while in the city of Paramaribo, fortunately
became acquainted with Dr. C. Hering, established there as a
homoeopathic physician. This meeting was doubtless the most
important event of my life, the turning point, as it were, of my
mind. He here cured me of spotted fever, a disease which in
that climate is always death. I therefore craved a knowledge of
that wonderful new medical system. Convinced of the sound-
ness of Hahnemann's doctrine I placed myself under the tuition
of my friend, Dr. Hering, studying arduously until I became a
proficient in the theory and practice of Homoeopathy. My consti-
tution, however, being unable to withstand the insalubrious
climate of Surinam, I was compelled to leave the country after a
stay of nearly two years. With shattered health I sailed for
Boston in 1831, thence proceeded to Nazareth, Pa., where I
settled and practiced. The Asiatic cholera having broken out in a
virulent form in Philadelphia, I considered it my duty to repair
to that city immediately, both by knowledge and skill to assist
the thousands of sick and dying, and at the same time to demon-
strate to the world the truth of Hahnemann's system, by prov-
ing beyond cavil that Homœopathy is the best and, indeed, the
only true practice for that fatal disease. My reputation became
so widely spread that at the end of two years practice in that
city I was so overwhelmed with patients that in spite of the
utmost activity, I found it impossible to properly attend to all.
While in this strait I wrote to my friend, Dr. Hering, in Para-
maribo, urging him to come to Philadelphia, and assuring him
of a large field for his talents and labor. But as Dr. Hering
found it difficult to leave his work in Paramarabo, he did not
arrive until March, 1833, and then in ill health, with a fistula
in the thigh. He soon after joined me in practice, we two
establishing our office on Vine street. After some years of active
practice in Philadelphia, my own health became so impaired
that I was obliged to withdraw to the country. I again select.d.
the village of Nazareth as my abode, and since that period I
have never flagged in my efforts by writing, experiment and
practice to advance the great cause of Homoeopathy, and dis-
seminate its truths among the people Dr. Hering in one of his
magazine articles says: All the homeopathicians had in this
206
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
awful (cholera) epidemic the greatest success; even here in
Philadelphia; Dr. George Bute, my first student, had in 1832,
been trusted by the authorities with a hospital in Cherry street.
(Hahn. Monthly, vol. 11, p. 383. Am. Hom. Obs. vol. 13, þ.
232. World's Trans. vol. 2, p. 711. N. Am. Jour. Hom. vol.
22, p. 218).
CABARRUS. Was one of the early practitioners of Homo-
opathy in Paris. (World's Trans., vol. 2, p. 152.)
CALDAS, FRANCISCO DE PAULA. Was a pioneer of
Homœopathy in Alcala la Real, Spain. (1830-35.) (World's
Con., vol. 2, p. 324. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.)
CAMERON. Was practicing Homœopathy in London in
1835. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 107.)
CARAVELLI. Was practicing Homœopathy in 1834, ac-
cording to Dr. Quin, in Giulia Nuova.
CARLIER, JEAN BAPTISTE. Died in Brussels, April 9,
1873. Dr. C. commenced to practice Homoeopathy in Brussels
as early as 1831, and he with Dr. Varlez, were the veterans of
the system of Hahnemann in that city. He was one of the
founders of the Belgian Homœopathic Society in 1837. (Allg.
hom. Zeit., vol. 87, p. 8. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 308.)
CARRAULT. Quin gives the name in the list of 1834, at
which time he was practicing Homœopathy at Rouen, in France.
CATENET. Quin gives the name followed by an interro-
gation point, and with the title Chirurgus Nosocomii. In 1834
he was practicing Homœopathy in Bordeaux, France.
CENTAMORI SETTIMIO. Dr. Ladelci says: Dr. Centa-
mori, having heard of Homoeopathy from Dr. Braun, about 1833,
and having seen some cures, began to study and familiarize him-
self with the new discoveries of the immortal German, in order
to enable himself to multiply the facts in favor of his doctrines.
He was therefore exposed to the usual abuse and hostility of the
adherents of the old school. The success of his practice sur-
passed his expectation. A persecution of Dr. Centamori was
commenced by the physicians and apothecaries of the old school;
he was accused of administering poison, and was prohibited from
practicing medicine because he was only a surgeon. To surmount
OF HOMEOPATHY.
207
this Dr. C. went to Bologna and took out his degree of Doctor
of Medicine. In 1837, when the cholera visited Rome, Dr.
Centamori was very successful in its homoeopathic treatment,
but the rector of St Peter's dying of cholera while under his
treatment, he was accused of poisoning that prelate. At a later
period he went, as his physician, with the Grand Duke of Lucca
on his travels. Dadea says that Dr. Mauro, returning to Rome
in 1830, converted to Homœopathy the district physician of
Velletri, who not being able from advanced age to undertake the
arduous study and laborious practice of the new doctrine, in-
stilled its first principles into the mind of his son, Dr. Settimio
Centamori, whom we shall presently meet among the most dis-
tinguished practitioners of Rome and Italy. (Brit. Jour. Hom.,
World's Con., vol. 2, p. 1074. Rapou, vol. 1, pp.
vol. 4, p. 459.
121, 123.
CHANCEREL (pere). Was an early homoeopathic practi-
tioner of Paris, of the time of Petroz, Curie, Gueyrard the elder,
and the others of the first galaxy of Hahnemann's time.
-
CHANNING, WILLIAM. Was born in Massachusetts about
1800. He graduated at Rutgers College, New York, in April,
1830. He joined Gram's party in the New York County Medi-
cal Society for the establishment of the recorded and public ex-
amination of candidates, and having been elected in that body to
the office of censor with Gram and Wilson for colleagues, he
often heard Homoeopathy mentioned. He was led to study the
subject, and when in 1832 the cholera appeared in New York,
he tendered his services at the hospitals. He made a public trial
of the efficacy of Camphor, Veratrum and Cuprum, as prescribed
by Hahnemann. He thought so well of the results that he pub-
lished them over his own signature in the Commercial Advertiser
of that day, and soon after declared his entire change of practice.
Before this but little attention had been paid to what were con-
sidered the vagaries of Gram, but when so well-known and
cultured a man as Channing declared the new system true, it
marked a new era in the history of Homœopathy. He also
differed from his fellows in the new method in declaring that the
empirical use of some of the old remedies was not necessary, and
said that the practice was unjustifiable. He accepted Homœop-
athy as a principle, which he was satisfied was all-sufficient, that
G
208
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
a failure to cure did not disprove the law, but showed a lack of
knowledge in the practitioner. He may be called the first Hahne-
mannian Homoeopath in the new world. Dr. Gray, in his ad-
dress before the New York Homoeopathic Society, has given a
very careful sketch of this brilliant man. He says: Next came
Dr. William Channing, a man of large culture in letters and
very thoroughly educated in medicine. He was in the mid-prime
of his life at the time of his conversion to Homœopathy in 1832
during the first appearance of the Asiatic cholera in this country.
Channing's was an eminently logical mind, attending with full
earnestness to all topics of a philosophical character, till he
arrived at definite conclusions; and when he reached these he
was firm and decided in their maintainance. He was not of the
sceptical class on any subject. In politics he was a Republican
of the Hamilton school; in religion a Unitariah, with his cousin
the great William Ellery Channing, of Boston; and in medicine,
till his conversion to Homoeopathy, an adherent of the physio-
logical system of Broussais. With Channing's conversion came
the first divergence of practice among the Homoeopaths in this
country. He was a thorough Hahnemannian in all his views
and practice, which neither of his predecessors were. Gram,
Wilson and myself held from first to last that these expedients
of the old practice which had attained such a solid basis of em-
pirical certainty as to good results in given and well defined
cases of disease, ought not to be laid aside. When Gram arrived
in the country the founder of the school had not adopted the
later practice of attenuating the remedies, and our method was
till 1833, to administer doses equivalent to the first and second
centesimal dilutions. Channing went up promptly with Hahne-
mann in his doses, fully believing in the potentizing process and
faith of the Master, and even after the death of Hahnemann
going out of the very roof of all scientific observation with the
enthusiastic Jenichen of Hanover. These differences created no
differences in the harmony of the little circle as an analogous
state of things had done in Europe between Hahnemann and
some of his disciples. Channing had high views and well-
matured maxims of personal rights. He compelled himself to
respect the right of private judgment in medical polemics as he
did in religious and all philosophical differences. He was in full
practice when he came to us. His only publication was an
+
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
209
address to an allopathic society, but that lecture which was an
argument in favor of Homoeopathy, is a work of great power
and of much merit in all ways. The society published it at that
timemuch to the credit of their liberality, and the members of
our school at my instance republished it some ten years later.
Channing failed in health in 1844, and after many dreary years.
of disease, marked by a sad decadence of his once grand mental
powers, he paid the debt of nature. Gray says he died in 1857,
but there is little reason to doubt that he really died of paralysis
at Harrisburg, Pa., on February 11, 1855. Dr. H. M. Smith
gives this date. (Trans. Am. Inst. Hom., 1870. World's Con.,
vol. 2, p. 449.
Cleave's Biography. Trans. N. Y. State Hom.
Soc., 1863. N. E. Med. Gaz., vol. 6, p. 142.)
CHARGE, A. Was one of the earlier French Homœopathists.
Rapou says of him: He was one of the best known Homœopaths
in France. He wrote a book on our method, and was held in
great esteem in Marseilles. He was president and secretary of
the Homoeopathic Society. Dr. Chargé published a book in
1838, of "Medical Studies, or Answer to the Accusations Against
the Homœopathic Doctrine." He also published a pamphlet on
the "
Cholera in Marseilles," in 1854, one on the treatment of
the cholera, and also a history of that epidemic. (Rapou, vol.
1, p. 118. Rev'a. Hom'a., vol. 36, p. 190. Rev. Hom. Belge.,
vol. 17, p. 159. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 152.)
CHARRIERE. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy,
at Thonon, in Switzerland. Dr. Quin, in his list of Homœo-
pathists, published in 1834, mentions the name.
CHAZEL. According to Quin, he was practicing Homoeopathy
in 1834 at Lyons. Rapou says: Many missionaries who went
into foreign countries realized the benefits of the new treatment.
Among others was the Père Chazel, a Jesuit of the diocese of
Lyons, who devoted himself to the study of Homœopathy.
About to leave our city, he came to ask of my father for reme-
dies and advice for the exercise of that art which he intended to
practice among his faithful savages, so that he might be to them,
under all circumstances, the physician and the benefactor.
(Rapou, vol. 1, p. 95.)
CHUIT. Was an
Geneva, Switzerland.
early practitioner of Homoeopathy, in
He was converted to Homoeopathy by Dr.
210
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Dufresne, and practiced for many years at Geneva. Quin, in
his list of 1834, mentions the name but gives no address. Dr.
Malan, in a letter to the British Journal of Homœopathy, in 1844,
writes that he was of the time of Peschier, and that he was an
experienced practitioner when he took up Homœopathy. (Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 2, p. 327.)
CICCARINI. According to the Quin list of 1834, he was
practicing Homœopathy in 1834 at Rome, Italy.
CIMONE, GIUSEPPE. Cimone's name is on the Zeitung list
of 1832, and the Quin list of 1834, at which period he was prac-
ticing Homœopathy in Naples, Italy.
Dr. Dadea says that when Dr. Des Guidi took his invalid wife
to Naples, in 1828, he found an old friend in Dr. Cimone, who
was resident physician at the baths of Pozzuoli, a short distance
from the city. Cimone, who was a pupil of the Homœopathist
Romani, advised that Madame Des Guidi be placed in the care of
Romani; this was done and the lady was cured. (World's Con.,
vol. 2, p. 1071. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 135.)
J
COLL, JOSEPH SEBASTIEN. Dr. Coll, at the age of 60,
commenced to study the new doctrine of medicine. At that
time he was possessed of fortune and enjoyed a remarkable repu-
tation as a physician. When he thought himself fitted to prac-
tice Homœopathy he established a section for clinical practice at
the civil hospital of the City of Toro, in Old Castile, of which
he was honorary physician. He then only admitted patients
who were declared to be incurable by the other professors at the
hospital, and after curing many of these he would not allow
them to leave until again seen by these professors and declared
to be veritably cured by their own certificate. This record was
placed on the register of the hospital and formed a proof of the
virtues of Homoeopathy. He also founded, at his own expense,
a very complete homoeopathic pharmacy; he opened in the City
of Toro a course of instruction in which he gave lectures upon
the theory and practice of Homoeopathy, the homoeopathic section
of the hospital furnishing clinical material. Many students,
principally from Valladolid, assembled to hear him, and being
convinced of the truth of the system, requested the professors of
the University to explain the new doctrine as a useful sci-
ence, but encountering resistance to their demands they went
OF HOMEOPATHY.
211
to the rector, who invited Dr. Coll to present himself before the
council of the University to make an exposition of Homoeopathy
and to answer the objections of the professors. Dr. Coll started
for Valladolid the next day, but on presenting himself at the
University it was announced to him, on the part of the Faculty,
that the controversy was to be in secret before the Academy of
Medicine and Surgery. He answered that he would not consent
unless the controversy was in public, so that the triumph of the
victor should be complete and well known. His adversaries re-
fused to comply with this, and one of them distributed a hand-
bill, anonymously, in which he made charges as indecent as they
were false in reference to this challenge. Dr. Coll answered
this, and so far was he wishing to avoid discussion that he re-
moved to Valladolid, where he proposed to establish a special
and public chair of Homœopathy.
In the province of Zamora Dr. Coll practiced and was aided
by the pharmacist of the City of Toro, Don Alexander Rodriguez
Tejedor, who prepared his medicines. Dr. Coll maintained a
violent controversy with the Faculty of the University of Val-
ladolid, which culminated in a public discussion. Among his
adversaries were the Drs. Lario and Fernandez Rio, who having
conversed with Dr. Coll and became acquainted with Homœ-
opathy adopted and practiced it. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 1, p.
202. U. S. Med. Inves., vol. 10, p. 84. World's Con., vol. 2, p.
324. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.)
CONVERS. Was an early practitioner of Homoeopathy at
Vevey, Switzerland. Quin gives the name in his list of 1834.
Rapou writes in 1842: We would remark that our confrère,
Convers, of the Canton of Vaud, has replaced Dr. Grop at
Florence. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 195.)
CREPU, A. Dr. A. Crépu, of Grenoble, is dead. Crépu was
one of the first French homeopathic physicians. (June 13, 1859.)
In Quin's list of 1834 Crépu figures as: Artis Botannicæ, Pro-
fessor, Grenoble. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 58, p. 192.)
CRONIGNEAU. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy
at Dijon, France.
CRONIN, EDWARD. The Monthly Homœopathic Review
contains the following: The late Edward Cronin, of Brixton,
whose death occurred on the first of February (1882), was born
212
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in Cork in 1801. He studied for the profession of medicine at
the Math Hospital, Dublin. During the earlier portion of his
career, Dr. Cronin devoted himself to missionary work. In
1828, in conjunction with his friends, Mr. John Purnell (now
Lord Congleton), Professor F. Newman and Dr. Kitto, he took
an active part in constituting the religious body now known as
the Plymouth Brethren. His first wife having died in 1829—a
year after marriage-Dr. Cronin, in company with the friends
we have named, went to the East as a missionary. When in
Bagdad, an epidemic of the plague broke out and Dr. Cronin
exerted himself strenuously to relieve the physical wants of
those by whom he was surrounded. In 1835 he left Syria for
the Madras Presidency of India, when he again devoted himself
to religious and medical work. In 1837 he returned to England,
and now his acquaintance with Homœopathy commenced. In
1838 he married a daughter of Sir John Kennaway, Bart., of
Escot, Devon, and after practicing for a short time in Islington
and in Stafford, be finally settled in Brixton, where he has since
resided, and been engaged in a very extensive practice, enjoying
not only the confidence, but the warm affection of a large circle
of friends. Dr. Cronin's eldest son, Dr. Eugene Cronin, is the
well-known homoeopathic physician at Clapham, while another
is the honorary dentist to the London Homoeopathic Hospital.
(Month. Hom. Rev., vol. 26, p. 193.)
CROSERIO, SIMON FELIX CAMILLE. Dr. Croserio's
name is on the Quin list of 1834 as a practitioner of Homoeopathy
in Paris. The British Journal says: The immediate disciples
and friends of Hahnemann are dropping off one by one. Not a
year elapses that we have not the painful duty to perform of
recording the decease of some veteran homoeopathist whose name
is intimately associated with the rise, extension, and triumph of
the new system of medicine. The subject of the present memoir,
however, does not exactly belong to the class of Hahnemann's
disciples, for his conversion to Homœopathy only dates from
some twenty years ago. But his advanced years, his previous
high reputation, his eventful life, his more than youthful zeal
and industry in the propagation of Hahnemann's doctrines, and
his friendship with their venerable author, served to render him
conspicuous among the adherents of the new school, and we feel
in recording his death that Homœopathy has lost one of its most
eminent partisans.
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
213
Simon Felix Camille Croserio was born at Condova, in Savoy,
on the 16th of November, 1786. He died at Paris the 13th of
April, 1855. He was consequently in the 69th year of his age.
The following particulars of his life we borrow from the pages
of our Gallican contemporary, to which, when alive, he was a con-
tributor: He early evinced a great aptitude for work and a zealous
desire to do his duty. At school he gained the love and respect
of his masters and fellow pupils, and obtained high honors of
scholarship. Having early devoted himself to medical studies,
he pursued them with such success that at the age of twenty he
obtained, by competition, the post of demonstrator of anatomy at
the University of Turin. However, he had soon afterwards the
mortification to find his career in that way brought to an un-
timely close, as he was forced by the conscription to enter the
army. It was not long before he got the appointment ot sub-
assistant surgeon, his commission bearing the date of 1806.
On the 12th of June, 1808, he obtained the title of Doctor of
Surgery ftom the University of Turin. As assistant-surgeon in
the Imperial Guard he made the campaign of Germany in 1809,
those of Spain in 1810 and 1811, that of Russia in 1812, those of
Saxony in 1813 and 1814 and the campaign of France the same
year. In the disastrous campaign of 1814 he was wounded, and
had his left leg broken. He was made surgeon-major of the Old
Guard in 1815.
After the fall of Napoleon I, he abandoned the army,
and soon
established himself at Paris. Although a native of Piedmont,
he did not require any permission in order to practice medicine
in France, because when he took his degree at Turin, that city
was under the government of France. Immediately after the
revolution of 1830 he got himself naturalized as a Frenchman.
Having witnessed a cure effected by Hahnemann in 1833, he
was so struck by it that he determined to study the Organon,
the only work of Hahnemann at that time translated into French.
The perusal of this aphoristic work made him anxious to become
acquainted with the instruments by which Homœopathy effected
its marvellous cures. In order the better to be able to compre·
hend the ideas of Hahnemann, and to understand the exact
signification of the symptoms produced on the healthy human
being, he resolved to devote himself to the study of the German
language, and it was in the pages of the Materia Medica that,
214
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
without a master, he acquired a knowledge of this language.
By day occupied with the care of his patients, he spent his nights
in translating and learning the Materia Medica. His excessive
application to his new studies and sitting up late at night
affected his sight.
The success he obtained in his application of Homœopathy
caused him to embrace its doctrines with enthusiasm. In order
to propagate it among students of medicine he requested, in
1835, the authorization to deliver in Paris a course of lectures on
Homœopathy. He was, however, unable to obtain the per-
mission.
Croserio was a studious man; he worked hard and wrote a
great deal. In conjunction with Drs. Jahr and Leon Simon he
edited the Annales de la Médecine Homœopathique. He wrote
many articles for the Archives de la Médecine Homœopathique.
His fertile pen supplied a great number of papers to the Journal
de la Societe Hahnemannienne de Paris, to which he also con-
tributed translations from the German, Italian, and Spanish.
journals. He published an excellent article there on the treat-
ment of gonorrhoea. Among his other works we may mention
the following: I. A volume entitled, "On Homœopathic Medi-
cine, etc.; and On the diet to be followed during the treatment,'
1835; 2. "On the advantages Homœopathy offers to society,'
1835; 3. "Statistics of Homoeopathic Medicine," 1848; 4. "A
Manual of Homœopathic Medicine," 1850.
In the last-named work, the author, who had been long
actively engaged in midwifery practice, has consigned the re-
sults of his great experience of the Homoeopathic system, as
applied to this branch of medicine. This work is well-known
to most of our readers through the American translation.
>>
""
Dr. Croserio suffered in his health from his intense applica-
tion to the study and practice of Homœopathy. For a long time
he had been subject to a chronic pulmonary catarrh, with much
oppression of the breathing. and sometimes fits of suffocation.
In 1853 he had diabetes mellitus, of which he cured himself;
but in consequence of the fatigue he underwent in the treatment
of the cholera patients of 1854, he had an attack of cholerine.
The most serious symptoms were subdued; but he would take
no care of himself, nor give himself the necessary time to re-
He continued to be a valetudinarian, was very much
debilitated, and looked much older than he actually was.
cover.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
215
Madame Croserio tried to persuade him to go into the country
to recruit his health, but this he steadily refused to do, saying,
that if he quitted Paris he would be deserting before the enemy,
and betraying his patients; that a soldier should die at his post
in the breach. And there, indeed, he died; for in spite of his
sufferings and his weakness, he continued to give advice to
patients until the last moment. Death was the only termination
of his labors, and of his devotion to science and to humanity.
Towards the end of his life he became so debilitated that his
voice could scarcely be heard. Some days before his death, he
was informed that it was the intention of the Gallican Society
to offer him the title of honorary president, but he did not sur-
vive long enough to receive the proposed honor.
He was accompanied to his grave by a large number of his
friends and patients. The Rev. M. Coquerel, who performed the
religious ceremonies, made an oration at the grave, in which he
gave a sketch of the labors and good qualities of the deceased.
Although he had been married thirty-five years, he had no
family; but having been appointed guardian to a young orphan
girl, a distant relative, he adopted her, and brought her up as
his own child until she married.
Croserio's ardent and philanthropic disposition rejoiced to
record the progress of Homoeopathy. He desired to spread the
knowledge of its truths, and loved to put it within the reach of
the poorer classes. He was physician to some benevolent socie-
ties, and to the Maternal Society of Paris. He was physician
to the Protestant Provident Association, and likewise to the
Establishment of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. For a long
time he was physician to the Sardinian Embassy.
Being master of several languages, he had a large correspond-
ence with foreign Homœopathists. He was member of many
learned societies at home and abroad. He belonged to the old
Gallican Homoeopathic Society; had been president of the old
Homœopathic Society; and afterwards president of the Hahne-
mannian Society of Paris. He was also corresponding or hon-
orary member of various foreign homœopathic societies. At his
death he was an active member of the present Gallican Society.
The following appears in the Hom. Klinik: Dr. Croserio was
born in Condova, Savoy, in 1786, and he died April 13, 1855, in
Paris, in the 60th year of his life. Before he had completed his
216
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
studies in Turin, he was conscripted as a soldier, and entered
the army as sub assistant surgeon. He remained in the army
till 1814, serving in the campaigns in Germany, Spain and
Russia. Yet he found time in 1812 to acquire his diploma as
doctor. After the fall of Napoleon Croserio left the military
career in which he had advanced to the position of surgeon-
major, and he settled as physician in Paris. Here, in 1833, he
became acquainted with Homoeopathy through Dr. Petroz, and
commenced to study it with great zeal, and in order to be able
to go to the fountain-head, he studied German with great perse-
verance. He became a faithful and zealous adherent and apostle
of the new doctrine, for which he did much not only by writing
but also by his practical activity till the end of his life. All the
French homœopathic journals contain a number of excellent
articles from his pen, and for some time he himself, together with
Drs. Jahr and L. Simon, edited the Annales de la Méd. Hom. He
also printed several independent works, of which we only will
mention a few of the later ones, e. g., "La Statistique de la Méd.
Hom.," 1848, and "Manuel Hom. d'Obstetrique," 1850. Croserio
was suffering for a long time of chronic catarrh, and for a long
time also from diabetes mellitus, but he seems to have recovered
from it, but seems to have been weakened and to have grown
aged from it; when the epidemic of cholera of 1854 came, and
with his extended practice laid upon him double and excessive
exertions. But in spite of all the advice of his friends, he would
not spare himself nor retire for a while to the country, for, he
said a soldier must not leave his post, and should rather die in
the breach. Although extremely exhausted, and at last so weak
that he could hardly make himself understood, Croserio did not
allow himself to be interrupted in the practice of his profession
until he succumbed to his exertions, and he gave his medical
advice to those who called on him almost to his last moment.
He especially alway had a tender care for the poor, and he was
for a long time physician in several charitable institutions and
societies. He was also the physician of the Sardinian Embassy.
He spoke and wrote several languages and corresponded with a
number of well-known Homœopaths in all countries; he also
was a member of many homoeopathic societies and unions in
France and in foreign countries. (Zeit. f. Hom. Klinik, vol. 4,
p. 168. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 155, vol. 2, p. 559. Brit. Jour. Hom.,
vol. 13. p. 474.)
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
217
CURIE, PAUL FRANCIS. In 1840 Rapou, visiting Eng-
land writes: My first care on arriving in London was to visit my
compatriot, Dr. Curie. He is, after Quin, the most distinguished
Homœopath. I knew his reputation as he had practiced for
some time in Paris. He is of all the physicians I know, the
most active and attentive to work. Rapou then gives an ac-
count of the first London Dispensary in which Curie was inter-
ested.
The editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy says: We
have the painful duty of recording the death of one of the best
known homœopathic practitioners of London; of one who, al-
though no Englishman, has identified himself in a remarkable
degree with the extension of Homœopathy in England—Dr.
Paul Francis Curie. Dr. Curie was born in Grand Charmont,
France, in the year 1799. Having fixed on medicine as a pro-
fession, he went to Paris, where he pursued his studies under
the professors of the Faculty of Medicine, among whom were
some whose names have since become household words in the
history of medical science, such as Broussais, Dupuytren, Boyer,
Beclard, Lisfranc, and others. He is said to have been a favorite
pupil of the founder of the school of physiological medicine, a
school which fortunately for mankind did not long survive its
chief, and he always retained the greatest admiration for his in-
structor, and to the last continued to hold the pathological doc-
trines of Broussais, which, there is no doubt, had a certain in-
fluence even on his practice as a Homœopathist.
Having resolved on entering the military service, he was, in
1820, appointed supernumerary surgeon to the military hospital
of Val de Grace. The following year he was transferred to the
military hospital of Calais as surgeon 3rd class, and in 1823, he
was appointed to the military hospital of instruction of Lille.
During that year he successively filled the post of surgeon 3rd
class to the hospital of Picpus and Val de Grace in Paris. In
1824, he took his degree of M. D. at the Faculty of Paris, and
received the appointment of assistant surgeon to the 8th Regiment
of Chasseurs. In 1827 he was transferred to the corps of
Pompiers, Mulhausen, as assistant-surgeon, and in 1830 he was
promoted to the full surgeoncy of the National Guards of Mul-
hausen, in which town he settled down to practice.
In 1832 he became a convert to the doctrines of Hahnemann,
218
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and went to Paris in 1833. He entered enthusiastically on the
practice of Homoeopathy, and in conjunction with Dr. Simon,
was permitted to perform some homœopathic experiments in one
of the large hospitals of Paris, which, however, did not result
in the conversion of the whole medical staff of the hospital.
In 1835 Mr. William Leaf, a London merchant having an ex-
tensive commercial connection with France, being desirous of
inducing some homoeopathic practitioner to open a dispensary
for the purpose of extending the benefits of Homœopathy to the
poor, was recommended by one of his French friends to apply to
Dr. Curie, which he accordingly did, and easily persuaded him
to exchange Paris for London.
Before, however, the beneficent intentions of Mr. Leaf with
regard to the propagation of Homœopathy among the poor could
be fulfilled, it was necessary that his protegé should learn En-
glish, of which he did not know a word. This difficulty over-
come,* in 1837 a dispensary was opened in Finsbury Circus, and
Dr. Curie was duly installed as physician, with a Dr. Harrold
as his assistant. The assistance he derived from this Dr. Har-
rold does not seem to have been very great. It is said, in fact,
that the assistant behaved rather unhandsomely to his chief; but
however that may be, certain it is that Dr. Harrold shortly after-
wards allied himself to a lady with some money, and set up as
an allopathic practitioner. Assuredly Dr. Curie had not much
comfort or credit in this, his first assistant and pupil. He fared
better afterwards, as will be seen in the sequel. Dr. J. Laurie
of London, and Dr. Fearon of Birmingham, were his pupils
at this dispensary. Dr. Curie resided in the dispensary.
In 1839 the dispensary and Dr. Curie removed to Ely Place,
Holborn. Dr. Ozanne, Dr. Mayne, Dr. Partridge, Dr. Vietting-
hoff, and Mr. Engall used to attend at this dispensary, and re-
ceive instructions in homoeopathic practice from Dr. Curie. In
the following year his dispensary was attended by Dr. Black,
who bears testimony to the attention which Dr. Curie bestowed
both on his patients and pupils. In 1841 Dr. Curie completed
his gradual progress from east to west, and took up his abode in
Brook street, the dispensary being still continued at Ely Place,
where Dr. Ozanne dwelt as resident physician.
*In 1836 he published his "Principles of Homœopathy,” and in 1837
his “Practice of Homœopathy." We must not always judge of an author's
proficiency in a language by the works that appear in his name.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
219
But Dr. Curie's munificent patron was not content that his
sphere of operations on behalf of the sick poor should be limited
to a mere dispensary; he resolved that an hospital should be
established for the purpose of displaying the triumphs of
Homœopathy, and the skill of his protegé. Accordingly, in
1842, the dispensary in Ely Place was given up, and a large
house in Hanover Square was taken by Mr. Leaf, and by him
furnished appropriately, and fitted up with twenty-five beds.
The arrangements with respect to patients were now altered so as
to render the new establishment to some extent self-supporting
in the event of deficiency of subscriptions. Patients were re-
ceived into the house on the order of a governor, or on the pay-
ment of £3 15s. per month. Out-patients were either nomin-
ated by a guinea subscriber, or paid one guinea per annum.
The institution was otherwise supported by Mr. Leaf, and the
subscriptions of his friends. A goodly number of names of the
nobility also appear in the subscription list. Dr. Ozanne con-
tinued to act for some time longer as a resident physician. In
1843 an attempt was made to establish a school of Homœopathy
in conection with the institution. Dr. Curie lectured on Clinical
Medicine, Dr. Ozanne on Pathology and the Practice of Homœ-
opathy, and Mr. Headland on Homœopathic Pharmacy. At the
end of 1843, Dr. Sydney Hanson, who had been acting for six
months as medical secretary, succeeded Dr. Ozanne as resident
physician. Previous to this, Dr. Massol had for some time as-
sisted with the out-patients, and Mr. Barry attended for a few
weeks as an inquirer. After Dr. Ozanne's departure, Mr.
Metcalfe, of Hackney, and Mr. Parsons of Dover, became pupils at
the institution, and the students and inquirers used to meet regu-
larly twice a week for the purpose of study. Since 1840 a work
entitled "Annals of the Homoeopathic Dispensary," was pub-
lished at irregular intervals, until 1845. It contains several of
Dr. Curie's clinical lectures, which are so highly esteemed on
the other side of the Atlantic that they form one of the text-
books of the Philadelphia Homœopathic College. In 1844 Dr.
Sydney Hanson from the records of all the cases that had been
treated at the hospital, which had been regularly and carefully
kept, drew up an elaborate report of the cases treated from 1839
to 1844. This report was published in the Appendix to Mr.
Sampson's work on Homœopathy. Dr. Chepmell succeeded Dr.
Hanson as resident physician at the end of 1844.
220
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
In 1845 the English Homœopathic Association was formed.
Its most active members and promoters were Mr. Sampson and
Mr. Heurtley, and its chief medical supporters were Dr. Curie
and Dr. Epps. Mr. Sampson wrote his excellent work on Homo-
opathy for the Association, and continued to take a great inter-
est in it until he quarrelled with Dr. Curie, in 1847. The
English Homoeopathic Association still exists, and every now
and then gives tokens of its vitality by holding public meetings,
getting up petitions to Parliament, and publishing popular
works.
In 1845 the well-known case of the inquest on Mr. Cordwell
occurred, which gave rise to some serious animadversion on the
dietetic restrictions practiced by Dr. Curie. He wrote a long
letter in the Morning Post, defending his dietetic practice gener-
ally, and that pursued in Mr. Cordwell's case more particularly.
This letter appeared to a large number of homoeopathic practi-
tioners an attempt to identify Homœopathy with the peculiar
dietetic notions of the writer, and a counter statement was pub-
lished by them, protesting against the extreme stringency of Dr.
Curie's rules, and showing from Hahnemann's writings, that
they did not form any part of the homoeopathic system, and were
contrary to the teachings of the Master. Dr. Curie replied to
this by a pamphlet entitled, "Case of Mr. Cordwell," wherein
he claimed for his dietetic practice a large success.
In the same year (1845) there was a talk of a Medical Regis-
tration bill being introduced into Parliament, and it was alleged
that medical men holding a foreign diploma would be excluded
from registration. Dr. Curie thought it best to be prepared in
the event of such a bill becoming law, and he accordingly went
to Aberdeen, and obtained, by examination, the degree of M. D.,
at the King's College at that city.
An attempt was made, about the year 1847, to remodel the
Homœopathic Institution in Hanover Square, and to convert it
into an hospital where other homoeopathic practitioners might
be admitted as medical officers. The attempt proved a failure,
in consequence of, we believe, the injudicious attempts of some
of Dr. Curie's most zealous friends to put him in a position of
supremacy over the other medical officers.
In 1850 the Hahnemann Hospital was established by the
united exertions of a large number of the homoeopathic practi-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
221
tioners of London and the provinces. Dr. Curie was duly elected
one of its medical officers, along with ten others. He remained
attached to it as one of its physicians and clinical lecturers until
his decease, which took place on the fifth of October last. He
caught the typhus fever from one of his patients in the hospital,
and died after a very short illness. For several years past his
health has been very indifferent, and he has frequently been laid
up with attacks of rheumatism. His body was accompanied to
the cemetery at Norwood by a large number of his colleagues
and friends.
Such is a brief outline of Dr. Curie's career. In a few words
we shall attempt to give a just estimate of his professional char-
acter. In selecting a Homoeopathist to settle in London as his
protegé, Mr. Leaf sought for one who would second, to the best of
his abilities, his benevolent scheme of extending the advantages
of Homœopathy to the poorer classes, and of establishing a propa-
ganda of Homœopathy in the metropolis. Dr. Curie conscien-
tiously performed, to the best of his ability, all that was expected
from him; he worked most energetically at the dispensary, and
never seemed to grudge any labor that was expended in the
cause he was brought here to promote; he did all that was re-
quired of him, and suffered himself to be guided entirely by his
lay patrons. To this lay influence we are constrained to attribute
certain acts of Dr. Curie, which we cannot reconcile to our own
notions of professional etiquette; among others, his periodical
exhibitions of the patients cured at the institution, to an admir-
ing crowd of non-medical visitors. These exhibitions were re-
garded with pain and dislike by all who had a true feeling of
professional conduct, and served to estrange from Dr. Curie many
who would have been foremost to acknowledge his merits.
as a successful propagandist of Homœopathy. We cannot doubt
that it was at the instigation of, and from a desire to please his
patrons, that Dr. Curie perpetrated what he knew would be con-
sidered a departure from professional etiquette in his own coun-
try, and what he could scarcely avoid knowing was equally dep-
recated by the profession in this. With the exception of this
and a few other little unprofessional acts, evidently ascribable to
the lay influence, we are glad to be able to accord the highest
praise to Dr. Curie's conduct in connection with the extension
of Homœopathy in this country.
222
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Dr. Curie worked with all his might and with all his heart in
his profession. Amid all the more profitable occupations of
private practice, he never neglected his duties to the poor at dis-
pensary or hospital. He was always accessible, and always.
willing to impart information to the inquirer. We always found
him courteous in consultation. He never uttered an unkind or
disparaging word respecting any of his colleagues, not even re-
specting those who he could not help being aware were privately
and publicly saying things most unkind and disrespectful of
himself. To patients, nurses, servants, he endeared himself by
his kind and interested manner to such a degree, that many of
them, to our knowledge, almost worship his memory.
It cannot be reckoned to him as his fault that he was not en-
dowed with much originality of genius; the talent he had he did
not bury in the ground, but employed it to the very best advan-
tage, and he has thoroughly identified himself with the popular
extension of Homoeopathy in England, for though there were
some very eminent practitioners in London before he came,
Homœopathy was not talked about beyond the bounds of their
limited, although influential, circle of patients. Curie, by his
indefatigable personal exertions, and by the zealous co-operation
of several lay adherents of Homœopathy he impressed into his
service, undoubtedly gave a great impulse to the extension of the
system in this country.
He had peculiar notions on the subject of diet, and in acute
and even some chronic diseases he enforced an austerity of diet
which Hahnemann discountenanced, and which we think was
often injudicious. The pathological views he derived from his
early instructor, Broussais, were the cause of his great dread of
allowing food in certain cases where there was a suspicion of
gastro-enteritis; for he believed in Broussais as much as he be-
lieved in Hahnemann, and as we have seen, in dietetic matters
followed the maxims of the former in preference to those of the
latter. We, who have no faith in the Broussaisian pathology,
can afford to smile at the practitioner who now-a-days carries out
his principles into practice; but we should make great allowances
for one who lived on terms of intimacy with, and was educated
by, a man of wonderful genius, as Broussais undoubtedly was,
and forbear to wonder if the peculiar and it may be erroneous
notions of the instructor should be indelibly fixed on the mind
of the pupil.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
223
Though we willingly acknowledge the great services rendered
to Homœopathy by Dr. Curie, assisted by his non-medical sup-
porters, Mr. Leaf, Mr. Sampson, and others, in the popular dif-
fusion of Homoeopathy, we feel bound to enter a protest against
the allegation we have observed in some notices of his death in
the newspapers, that the great majority of English homoeopathic
practitioners received their first instructions in Homoeopathy
from Dr. Curie. This is very far from being the case, Vixere
fortes ante Agamemnon, and there were Homoeopathists of no mean
ability practicing in this country before Dr. Curie set his foot in
it. The first medical man who openly practiced Homœopathy
in England was Dr. Romani, of Naples, who was brought over
here by the late Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1827; he did not stay
long. Dr. Belluomini next settled in London, then Dr. Quin;
Dr. Uwins, Dr. Stephen Simpson, and Dr. Dunsford in London,
and Dr. Scott in Glasgow, were all established in practice before
Dr. Curie came over. The following gentlemen also all adopted
and practiced Homoeopathy quite independently of any influence
from Dr. Curie. We shall only refer to those who embraced
Homœopathy before 1845, after which time Dr. Curie ceased to
receive pupils, and his influence as a teacher of Homoeopathy
was little if at all felt; and we shall enumerate them in the order
of their adoption of Homœopathy as nearly as we can: Dr.
Luther, Dr. Drysdale, Dr. Russell, Dr. Chapman, Mr. Phillips,
Dr. Walker, Dr. Ker, Dr. Irvine, Professor Henderson, Dr. Mad-
den, Dr. Dudgeon, Dr. Hilbers, etc. All these, and many more
whose names do not occur to us at the present moment, embraced
Homœopathy quite irrespective of any influence from Dr. Curie,
of whom, indeed, and whose teaching many of them had never
heard a word before their conversion to the doctrines of Hahne-
mann. As far then as they are concerned, the zealous propa-
gandism of Curie and his friends was absolutely unfelt. The
history of Homœopathy in England, when truly written, will
show that Homœopathy, like other truths, has made its way
silently and steadily, wholly independent of patronage or oppo-
sition from without.
The Klinik thus notices him: Dr. Paul Curie, homoeopathic
physician in London, was of French descent, and began his prac-
tice in Muhlhausen, in Alsatia, where he, however, soon turned
to Homœopathy. He accordingly in 1833, went to Paris to further
224
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
study under Hahnemann's own direction. But as early as 1835 he
was moved to go to London, owing to the friendship and the con-
fidence placed in him by a business man of London. Since then he
had for eighteen years an extended practice there. He first
founded a Homœopathic Dispensary in Finsbury Square, and later
on contributed very essentially to the establishment of the Hahne-
mann Hospital. He also labored actively for the diffusion and
advancement of Homoeopathy in England through his writings.
On the 5th of October, 1853, he succumbed to typhus fever.
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 47, p. 24. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 12, p.
160, vol. 14, pp. 194, 198. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 65-97. Zeit. Hom.
Klinik, vol. 3, Þ 32.)
CURTIS, JOSEPH THOMAS. Was the second pupil of
Dr. Gram. He was born at Danbury, Conn., January 29, 1815.
Giving promise at an early age of talent, his parents gave him as
thorough an English and classical education as their limited
means would permit. At the age of eighteen (1833) he became
a medical student in Dr. Gram's office, and passed a brilliant
public and recorded examination, receiving his license to prac-
tice March 23, 1836. He at once began the practice of Homo-
opathy. Possessed of great power of analysis and comparison,
profoundly versed in anatomy, physiology and materia medica,
it was a great delight to him to select the remedy from the scanty
resources at his command. He was regarded as one of the most
learned practitioners, esteemed by colleagues as well as patients.
Lacking the arts and blandishments by which many commend
themselves to their patients, he obtained neither wealth nor
fame. Dr. Valentine Mott said of him: "Dr. Curtis is a medi-
cal scholar of rare attainments and a gentleman of spotless char-
acter." Dr. Willard Parker attested to his possessing
superior and highly cultivated intellect, which he most ardently
devoted to the science of medicine and its collaterals."
""
a
In 1852 he was elected president of Hahnemann Academy of
Medicine, and delivered an inaugural address on the "Relation
of Homœopathy to Chemistry," which was published in pam-
phlet form. In 1843 he edited, with Dr. James Lillie, an epitome
of homoeopathic practice. His sight failing him, he made a
voyage to Europe for its restoration, with but partial success,
and afterwards went to the West Indies with a view of locating
there, but he did not. His sudden and sad death occurred
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
225
November 13, 1857. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 449. Cleave's Biog-
raphy. Trans. N. Y. Hom. State Soc., 1863, Gray's Address. N.
E. Med. Gaz., March, 1871. MSS. of Dr. H. M. Smith.)
DAPAZ. Quin, in his list of people practising Homœopathy
in 1834, places Dapaz in Lausanne, in Switzerland.
DAVET, A. J. Dr. Davet, of Benary, Count di Beaurepaire,
Cavalier of the Legion of Honor, one of the most distinguished
members of the Parisian Homœopaths, is dead at an advanced
age. Italian by origin, French by adoption, he was a pure dis-
ciple of Hahnemann. He died in October, 1873.
Dr. Leboucher gives an account of him in the Bibliotheque
Homœopathique: Dr. Davet was at first occupied with music, his
favorite instrument being the harp. But he turned to medicine,
going to Paris for his medical studies. To defray expenses he
became a tutor in a family named Lag. At this time Homo-
opathy had been introduced in Paris by Petroz and Gueyrard,
the elder. He gained his knowledge of Homoeopathy in com-
pany with Petroz, Gueyrard, Curie, Simon, Roth, Foissac,
Wiederhoun, Lafisse, Croserio. This was the first generation
of the pure disciples of Hahnemann. Music was always his
favorite distraction. For a short time he was associated with
Roth. He became physician to the Ambassador to Italy, to the
Prime Minister and received many orders. After a long pro-
fessional life, he died in September or October, 1873, aged
76 years. (Revista Omiopatica, vol. 19, p. 64. Allg. hom. Zeit.,
vol. 87, p. 160. Bibl. Hom., vol. 5, p. 217.)
DELAVALLADE. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy at Au-
busson, France.
DENICKE. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in Wittenberg,
Saxony. According to the Zeitung list of 1832, he was then
practicing at that place. Quin also locates him there in 1834-
DENOIX. The name appears in the Quin list of 1834, at
which time he was practicing Homoeopathy in Paris.
DESSAIX. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in Lyons. Quin
gives his name in the list of 1834. (Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 145, 393,
398; vol. 2, p. 12. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 152. Kleinert. p. 165.)
DESCHAMPS. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy in France.
(World's Con., vol. 2, p. 152.)
226
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
DETWILLER, HENRY. Although there have been many
biographical and obituary notices of the death of this dis-
tinguished man, the following, which appeared in the Hahne-
mannian Monthly, for May, 1887, combines the information in
them all and is quoted here verbatim: The following notice of the
late Henry Detwiller, M. D., of Easton Pa., the man who, on
July 23d, 1828, made the first homoeopathic prescription in the
State, we copy with but slight alterations from the Northampton
Democrat of April 29th, 1887: After seventy-two years of active
medical practice Dr. Henry Detwiller, having attained the vener.
able age of ninety-two years, and the distinction of being the
oldest homoeopathic physician in the United States, if not in the
world, has at last ended his long and useful career. About three
weeks ago he arose at an early hour, as has been his habit from
childhood, took his regular morning walk, and near the corner
of Fourth and Northampton streets had the misfortune to fall
upon the pavement, striking his forehead. He was assisted to
his feet and returned to his office, partook of his customary
lunch, and went to Bethlehem to attend several patients; the
following day he made professional calls at Frenchtown, N. J.,
and in the evening of the third day he began to feel the effects
of the fall From then until Thursday morning of last week,
April 21, at about seven o'clock, when he died, he has been
confined the greater portion of his time to his room. Always
accustomed to an outdoor life, his confinement irritated him,
but while consciousness lasted he still gave minute directions as
to the treatment of his patients, and superintended the prepa.
ration of medicines until through weakness he lost the power of
articulation.
His career has been a marvelous one. He was born in Langen-
bruch, Canton Basel Landschaft, Switzerland, on the 13th day
of December, 1795. His parents were named Henry and Verena
Detwiller. He attended the village school in his boyhood days,
where he showed great aptness for learning-so much so that
when he arrived at the age of thirteen he was sent to a French
institute at St. Immier, where he pursued his studies until he was
fifteen years old. He then became the private pupil of Laurentius
Senn, M. D., a graduate of the celebrated school of Wurzburg.
He remained under his tutelage for three years and prepared for
matriculation in the medical department of the University of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
227
,,
Freyburg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, to which institution
he was admitted in the spring of 1814, where he prosecuted his
studies for five consecutive semesters. After leaving the uni-
versity, having barely reached his majority, and being fond of
natural science, he felt a strong desire to penetrate the mysteries
of this broad field of interesting and useful knowledge, and
yearning for new scenes and impressions, he determined to cross
the seas and explore the regions of the new world. He left
Basel in the spring of 1817; several hundred emigrants accom-
panied him to Amsterdam. On this passage he acted as physician
to the company. When they arrived at Muyden, near Amster
dam, he was requested to present himself to a medical board at
the latter city for examination, which he did, was found compe-
tent, and was appointed physician on the ship "John," an
American vessel from Boston. It was an old "three-master
upon its farewell trip, almost worn out, and unseaworthy then,
but it took on board over four hundred human beings, men,
women and children. Too closely packed in the vessel, extreme
heat, perhaps improper food, caused great suffering among the
passengers. Disease overtook them, the medicine chest became
empty, and the young doctor was called upon, not only for his
medical skill, but the contents of his private medicine stores, to
save life. On board the ship was no less a distinguished person-
age than General Vandame, one of the officers of Napoleon, who
had become a political refugee. In the latter part of July, 1817,
the vessel reached the port of Philadelphia. Many of the passen-
gers who were sick when they arrived, with the sick of another
vessel, were put in charge of Dr. Detwiller by the port physician.
While thus detained he became professionally acquainted with
Dr. Munges, an eminent French physician, by whom he was
frequently called in consultation in the families of Gen. Van-
dame and other French refugees of rank. At the suggestion
and persuasion of Joseph Bonaparte and Dr. Munges, he was
dissuaded from going West, as he at first contemplated, and de-
termined to begin practice in some German locality. Having
letters of recommendation from high sources, he started out on
a prospective tour. His first visit was to Allentown, where he
arrived in the early autumn of 1817, and soon entered the office
of Dr. Charles W. Martin, then a prominent physician in that
county, where he remained as assistant for about seven months,
228
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
during which time he displayed so much real knowledge and
skill in his profession that he at once gained the confidence of
all.
During the winter following and after there was much sickness
in the country, puzzling in its nature the skill of physicians
generally, and causing much distress in the locality. The young
German doctor soon discovered that the disease was caused by
lead poisoning. The drug being in form of the malate of lead,
produced by keeping fruits in the earthen jars then in common
use, and in the manufacture of which litharge was employed.
Dr. Detwiller at once applied the proper antidotes and gave the
necessary instruction to warn the people against the danger and
the disease disappeared. Of course, the successful treatment at
once made the young doctor very popular among these people,
and from various localities came urgent invitations to establish
himself among them.
Finally, in the spring of 1818, he moved to Hellertown, in
Northampton county, and opened an office there. Having thus
settled himself, he soon made the acquaintance of an estimable
lady named Elizabeth Appel, to whom he was married in Decem-
ber of the same year. They lived happily together for seventeen
years, when Mrs. Detwiller died, leaving three sons and four
daughters to mourn her loss.
[In the year 1828, Wm. Wesselhoeft, M. D., and Henry Det-
willer, M. D., were practicing near each other, the former at
Bath, Pa., the latter at Hellertown, twelve miles south of Bath.
They met frequently in social life and in professional consultation.
At one of their meetings Dr. Wesselhoeft mentioned that he had
received from his father and Dr. Stapf, in Germany, some books.
on Homœopathy and a box of homoeopathic medicines. He
asked Dr. Detwiller to examine with him the new system of
medicine. Dr. Detwiller complied by studying up a case he
then had on hand, of retarded menstruation with severe colic,
and found Pulsatilla indicated. He administered it-the first
homeopathic dose in Pennsylvania, July 23, 1828, and was re-
warded by a speedy and complete cure.—Transactions of the
World's Homœopathic Convention, 1876, Vol. II., p. 773.] From
that time until his death he has been the unwavering student,
practitioner and champion of the principles of Homœopathy.
In 1836 he paid a visit to his native land, accompanied by his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
229
eldest son, William, whom he placed in one of the institutions
of learning there to pursue his studies under the guardianship
of a professional friend. During his stay in the old country he
formed the acquaintance of many learned men of Europe, among
the rest such celebrities as Dr. Hahnemann, Profs. Shoenlein,
Oken, Shintz, and others. During his sojourn he visited
his Alma Mater, presented his certificate of examination
(absolutorium) executed in the fall of 1816, when he had not at-
tained his majority, or the age required by the statutes for the
holding of a degree. So, after an absence of twenty years, he
applied to the medical faculty for an examination, and, if found
worthy, for the grant of a diploma. The faculty met, and after
subjecting him to a rigorous examination, he was rewarded with
that to which he would have been entitled twenty years before
had he been of age, namely, a diploma of Doctor Medicina,
Chirurgia et Artis Obstetricia.
In 1853 he removed to Easton, where he has since resided.
During all his years of extensive practice he was ever able to
devote himself to his favorite scientific studies. He collected
Flora Sauconensis, the name by which he called his herbarium,
the specimens being collected principally in Upper and Lower
Saucon. (Many botanical excursions were made in company
with his friends, Dr. De Schweinitz and Dr. Hübner.)
The ornithological specimens, the mammals, reptiliæ, chelo-
niæ, etc., collected and prepared by him, represented, with but
few exceptions, the whole fauna of Pennsylvania. A large
number of them were sent to the University of Basil, while he
was corresponding member of the National Historical Society
there.
He was elected a member of the Medical Faculty of the Acad-
emy of the Homoeopathic Healing Art at Allentown, in 1836,
and in 1844 assisted at the organization of the American Insti-
tute of Homœopathy in New York City, and retained his mem-
bership in the society until the close of his life. In 1866 he
assisted in the formation of the Homœopathic Medical Society of
the State of Pennsylvania, and continued his relations as a mem-
ber until his death.
In September, 1886, he attended the dedication of the new
Hahnemann College and Hospital in Philadelphia, and was
described by one of the city journals as follows: "A bright-eyed
230
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and rosy-faced, but bowed and gray-haired man, sat in one of
the airy halls of the beautiful Hahnemann College and Hospital
buildings last night, looking smilingly around him on hundreds
of men and women. It was Dr. Henry Detwiller, of Easton, and
the one man who in all that throng had spoken to the great
apostle of Homoeopathy, Hahnemann himself."
He was always interested in educational institutions, and for
fourteen years held the position of school director in Lower
Saucon township. He took an active interest in many business
enterprises, and has accumulated a large fortune. He was Presi-
dent of the North Penn Iron Company during its successful
operations, and connected with other furnaces, rolling mills, etc.
He was for many years a communicant member of the Third
Street Reformed church. He was the oldest member of the
Masonic fraternity in this part of the State. His family con-
sisted of three sons, all of whom were physicians, and four
daughters, as follows: Dr. Charles Detwiller, deceased; Dr.
Wm. Detwiller, of Hellertown; Dr. John J. Detwiller, of Easton,
who for years past has been associated with his father in prac-
tice; Henrietta Heller, widow of C. B. Heller, of Hellertown;
Matilda Martin, widow of Dr. Charles Martin, of Allentown;
Cecelia Detwiller, wife of Jacob Detwiller, of Jersey City; Lu-
cinda Lilliendahl, wife of J. A. Lilliendahl, of Jersey City. In
addition to these children he leaves twenty-seven grandchildren,
twenty-one great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchil-
dren.
The funeral of the late Dr. Henry Detwiller, took place on
Monday, from his residence in Centre Square, and though of a
private character, was largely attended. The aged physician,
who was not only the oldest man in our city, but the oldest
practitioner of medicine of his school in the world, and as far as
information can be obtained, the oldest of any school, had many
friends.
In looking upon him resting in his coffin it was difficult to
believe that for three-quarters of a century he had engaged in
active professional life. His remains which had been placed in
the spacious parlors of his residence, were visited during the
morning by a large number of people. They were enclosed in a
handsome casket. The floral tributes were very beautiful. At
the head of the casket were two sheaves of wheat with a sickle
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
231
composed of white rosebuds, and a large pillow of lilies and
roses. At his feet were a wreath of laurels and a cluster of
lilies.
((
The services were conducted by the Rev. Mr. Kieffer, of the
Third Street Reformed church, in accordance with the beautiful
ritual of the German Reformed church, to which the dead man
was so greatly attached, and to which his direct ancestors had
adhered for the last 300 years. The choir sang Asleep in
Jesus" and Abide With Me." At the conclusion of the
services the body was borne to the hearse by eight pall-bearers-
Dr. H. Heller, of Hellertown; Dr. Constantine Martin, of Allen-
town; Norton Martin, Esq., of Allentown; Harry Lilliendahl,
Esq., William Lilliendahl and Clarence Detwiller, of Jersey City;
Henry Detwiller, of Bethlehem, and William Detwiller, of Easton,
all grandchildren of the deceased. The interment was private
and was only winessed by the immediate relatives.
At a special meeting of the Lehigh Valley Homœopathic Med-
ical Society, held at the office of Dr. Doolittle, Easton, April 25,
at which there was a full attendance, the following resolutions
were passed:
"
WHEREAS, After a long and useful life, it has pleased Divine
Providence to remove from us Dr. Henry Detwiller, an ex-Pres-
ident of this society:
Resolved, That in his death this society has lost a faithful and
a most useful member.
Resolved, That while we most deeply deplore his loss, we are
truly thankful that he was allowed to live so many years
among us.
Resolved, That by his seventy-two years of active practice, his
great devotion to his professional duty, his kindness and court-
esy to those of us who came in professional contact with him, he
has established among us for himself a perpetual remembrance
and left us an example worthy of emulation.
Resolved, That we extend to the bereaved family our sincere
sympathy.
Resolved, That we attend the funeral in a body.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family
232
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of the deceased, to each of the papers of this city, to the North
American Journal of Homeopathy and to the Hahnemannian.
E. D. DOOLITTLE, M. D.,
F. J. SLOUGH, M. D.,
DANIEL YODER, M. D.
(Cleave's Biography. N. Am. Jour. Hom., vol. 35, p. 383. Hahn.
Mo., vol. 22, p. 299. Med. Adv., vol. 18, p. 596. Hom. Phys.,
vol. 7, p. 212. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 655. Trans. Am. Inst.
Hom., 1887.
Trans. Pa. Hom. Med. Soc., 1887.)
DEVRIENT, CHARLES H. Mr. Devrient was a lawyer in
Dublin who translated the Organon of Hahnemann into English
in 1833. This was the first English translation. (Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 14, p. 193.)
DEZAUCHE. According to the list of Quin, Dezauche was
practicing Homœopathy in Paris in 1834.
DIEHL. His name appears in the Zeitung list of 1832, at
which time he was practicing Homoeopathy at Bruchsal, in
Baden.
DOROTEA, LEONARDO. According to Quin he was
practicing Homœopathy in Villetta, Abruzzi, Italy, in 1834.
DRESCHER. According to the Zeitung list of 1832, Drescher
was at that time in practice as a Homœopath in Leipzig; Quin
also places him in Leipzig in 1834. Kleinert says that he, with
Apelt, joined the Leipzig Homœopathic Society in 1830.
DUFRESNE, PIERRE. Dr. H. V. Malan, in a letter to the
British Journal, says: Shortly after the truth in medicine had
been spread over the Continent, it reached Geneva, and that by
an incident worthy of notice. A gentleman of that town having
received, with a parcel of books, the Organon of Hahnemann,
unexpected and unasked for, handed it to Dr. Dufrèsne, who,
struck with the many truths it contains, set to work, and at the
beginning of 1831 raised the standard of Homœopathy at
Geneva. He was a man of experience and talent who had
studied much. The new and brilliant success of his practice
soon awakened the attention of many, though the globules
seemed very small; but there was so little quackery about the
system that it met with much opposition and great prejudice.
Dr. Dufrèsne, showing daily its efficacy and superiority over all
OF HOMEOPATHY.
233
previous systems, saw the opponents drop off one by one, and a
large and increasing number of adherents flock around him. So
he continued for many years. He was at the head of a Maison
de Santé in the country, a large establishment, where he received
deranged people, and was successful in his cure of a great num-
ber of cases treated by Homoeopathy. This added to the fame
of the doctrine. In 1833 he founded the Societé Homoeopathique
Gallicane, for all countries where French is spoken, which met
either at Lyons or Paris once a year. He also established at
Geneva, the Societé Homoeopathique Lemanienne, which met
once in three months, in some town in Switzerland. He also
established the Bibliotheque Homœopathique, a periodical monthly
magazine, the first book printed in French on Homoeopathy.
All these exertions, added to an extensive and daily growing
practice, hastened his death. He was seized with an acute bron-
chitis, which made rapid progress, as he was already suffering
from an old asthmatic affection. He died August 18, 1837.
In the Zeitung list of 1832 and the Quin list of 1834 Dufresne
is located at Geneva. Rapou says that Dufrèsne of Geneva had
given, with fuli success, Anthracin for a malignant pustule in a
man. He published detailed observations on the case in the
sixth volume of his journal.
Dr. Dufrèsne delivered the presidential address before the
French Homœopathic Society when Hahnemann was welcomed
to Paris. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 2, p. 326. Rapou, vol. 2, pp.
187, 199.
DUFRESNE. According to the Zeitung list of homoeopathic
physicians practicing in 1832, he was at that time located at La-
tour, Savoy. This is a different man from the Dufresne of
Geneva.
DUGNIOLLE. An early Homœopath of Belgium. Was
one of the founders of the Belgian Homœopathic Society, in
1837. (World`s Con., vol. 2, p. 308.)
DUNEMBERG. One of the early Homoeopathists of Belgium.
A founder of the Belgian Homoeopathic Society, in 1837.
(Worlds Con., vol. 2, p. 308.)
DUNSFORD, HARRIS F. Dr. George Atkin, in his Medi-
cal Directory for 1855, thus mentions this distinguished man:
He was one of the first English medical practitioners who
234
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
adopted the homoeopathic system of medicine. Born in the
year 1808, he became a licentiate of the Apothecaries Company
in 1829.
In 1830 he accepted the appointment of medical at-
tendant to the family of the Marquis of Anglesey and traveled
with one of the members thereof on the continent. In 1833 he
took his degree of M. D. at Freiburgh. In 1834 he returned to
and commenced practice in London, as a homoeopathic practi-
tioner. In 1838 he published a work bearing the following title:
"The Pathogenetic Effect of some of the Principal Homœopathic
Remedies." And again, in 1841, he published "The Practical
Advantages of Homœopathy," which he was permitted to dedi-
cate to Her Majesty, Queen Adelaide; and was at the period of
his death engaged on a translation of "Hartmann's Therapie."
Dr. Dunsford enjoyed the personal esteem of Hahnemann, and
doubtless it was from that master spirit himself that he imbibed
those large and comprehensive views of Homœopathy which so
eminently characterize his writings, and so successfully ap-
peared in his practice. Immediately after his return to London,
Dr. Dunsford's practice began to extend and increase-his quiet
and gentlemanly bearing, his patient attention to the tale of the
afflicted, combined with a quick apprehension of the nature of
the disease labored under, and a generally fortunate mode of
treatment, so enhanced his reputation, that he speedily rose to
one of the first physicians in the city, and had the honor of pre-
scribing for Her late Majesty, the Queen Dowager, during the
lifetime of the king.
Dr. Dunsford died at London on the night of the 17th of June,
1847, in the 39th year of his age. The immediate cause of his
death was cerebral congestion and effusion into the ventricles.
Cut down in the prime of his days, and at the very time when
his talents were becoming known, his death was widely and
deeply deplored, and his name to this day, is held in affectionate
and grateful remembrance by many of his former friends and
patients.
A
Dr. Dunsford left a widow and five children. The following
is the report of Mr. White Cooper, who made the post-mortem:
Post-mortem made about twenty hours after death. The ex-
amination was confined to the head. Some difficulty was ex-
perienced in the preliminary steps in consequence of the unusual
density and thickness of the cranium. The necessary section
OF HOMEOPATHY.
23.5
!
having been completed, endeavors were made to remove the
upper portion of the cranium, but so firmly adherent was the
dura mater that it was found impracticable to do so. During
the removal of the brain between two and three ounces of serum
escaped from beneath the arachnoid, and possibly from the ven-
tricles. The sinuses of the brain were gorged with blood. The
dura mater having been reflected, the pia mater presented the
appearance of great vascularity, and on the upper surface of the
left hemisphere there was a small quantity of gritty deposit.
The brain was of large size and somewhat beyond the usual
weight. The cerebral substance was of a natural consistence,
but highly vascular throughout. The lateral ventricles con-
tained a small quantity of fluid, but there was reason to believe
that a portion had previously escaped. The third ventricle was
dilated. The lining membrane of the ventricles was much in-
jected. The cerebellum and pons varolii were congested, but
otherwise healthy. The medulla spinalis was engorged and
much blood flowed from the divided vessels of the membrane.
There appeared to have been effusion into the theca. These
were the only abnormal appearances discovered upon careful ex-
amination. (Brit. For. Hom. Med. Directory, London, 1855, p.
205. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p. 399. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 76-79.)
DURET (Senior). According to Quin's list, was practicing
Homœopathy in Annonay, France, in 1834.
DURET (Junior). Was practicing Homœopathy, in Annonay,
France in 1834. The name appears on Quin's list.
DURIF. According to Quin, was practicing Homœopathy in
Tullin, France, in 1834.
DUTECH. The Quin list of 1834, names this man, but does
not know where he was in practice.
DUTCHER, BENJAMIN C. Came from Utica to New York
City in 1831. In 1834 he studied German in order to prosecute
the study of Homoeopathy which he practiced for five or six
years. He then entered on the practice of dentistry.
In 1869
he removed to Newark, N. J., where he again entered on the
practice of medicine. He died there October 20, 1889. He
joined the American Institute of Homœopathy in 1846. (World's
Con., vol. 2, p. 450. Med. Visitor, vol. 5, p. 408. N. E. Med.
Gaz., March, 1871. Smith's MSS.)
236
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
EGLAU. According to the list of the Zeitung, 1832, Eglau
was at that time Imperial Councillor, at Kursk, in Russia. Quin
also gives the name.
EHRHARDT, JO. HEINRICH WILHELM. Jo. Hein-
rich Wilhelm Ehrhardt, Dr. Med., homoeopathic physician in
Merseburg, died on August 25th, at I P. M., quietly and with-
out pain, wasting away, owing to a scirrhus of the liver.
He was one of our best men, both as a man and as a scientist,
indefatigable as a physician, kindly and self sacrificing, only
living for his art, for science and for the welfare of the numer-
ous patients who entrusted themselves to his care, a good
husband and a good father to his children, shunning no sacrifice
in order to secure their good education. I fulfill the sad duty
which I have performed for many before him, to erect a small
monument in this journal to this good and sterling man, who
was dear to me as a friend and highly valued as an intelligent,
successful Homœopath.
He was born in 1794 at Gera, where his father, Carl Gottfried
Wilhelm, lived as a surgeon and where he died as early as 1814,
of the prevailing typhus fever caused by the war, and which he
caught in fulfilling the duties of his calling. The family name
of his mother, Christiane Marie, was Jähren. He acquired the
knowledge necessary for entering a university first through in-
struction at home and the remainder in the Gymnasium (High
School), at Merseburg, and was enrolled at Jena in 1814, by
Prorector Voigt. His teachers here were Luden, Voigt, Oken,
Graumueller, Gruner, Doebereiner, Loebenstein, Loebel, Lenz,
Fuchs and Eichstaedt; of these he was especially attached to
the last three. He also became a member, here, of the Miner-
alogical Society. In the year 1815 he became an academic
citizen of the University of Leipzig under the prorectorate of
Weise. Here he enjoyed the friendship of Kuehn and the
especial favor of Cerutti and the younger Haase, who also gave
him an opportunity of seeing many patients and of treating them
under their direction. His studies not only extended to medi-
cine in the more limited sense, but inspired by the lectures of
Oken, and later by those of Platner, Krug and Heinroth, he
directed his attention also to philosophy and found especial
satisfaction in the writings of the genial Herbart of Gättingen.
By a stipendium of Schneeberger and Quelmalz he was sup-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
237
ported during his stay at Leipzig, where he honorably passed
first his examination for the Baccalaureate in 1817, and later
on October 17, 1819, the rigorosum. On the 7th of December,
he defended his dissertation, De Aneurismate Aortæ, under the
presidency of Rosenmueller, and received his diploma as doctor
on the 12th. In the winter of 1819-20, he passed the state ex-
amination at Berlin, and visited there the clinics of Behrends,
Hufeland, Horn, Rust, and Graefe, before he settled as practic-
ing physician in Eilenburg.
His conversion to Homoeopathy he has himself described in
his preface to the Malin disease (glanders) in Stapf's Archiv
(xviii, No. 1). His education in Leipzig could not predispose
him in favor of Homœopathy, nor was he brought closer to it by
his intercourse with some pupils of Hahnemann in Leipzig, nor
by some imperfect trials made of this new curative method in
conjunction with Prof. Haasejun. Nevertheless he had found
out from experience that the expectative method gave better
success than a mere blind dosing with medicines.
An extended practice in the country, which was not only full
of hardships but also fully occupied his time, did not for a long
time allow him to turn his whole attention to Homœopathy, to
which he was nevertheless drawn by living near Dr. Wisliceuus,
now in Eisenach, but who then also lived in Eilenburg. Several
chronic patients, however, who were pronounced incurable, gave
occasion in the winter of 1823, to try Homoeopathy; the success
in these cases, as also the friendly relations entered into with
Dr. Hartmann in Leipzig, and later on with Stapf, brought him
ever nearer to the new doctrine. He continued proving every-
thing slowly and exactly, and finally became a zealous adherent
and eulogist, as well as a successful practitioner.
The matter was not easy, and he began it in a serious manner.
"My first endeavor," he says, was to form and write down for
myself from the motley mixture of the symptoms of a remedy
the living images of diseases. Then I sought to go to work
analytically, so as to determine semiotically the value and sig-
nificance of the symptoms in a physiological manner; and to
make prominent the diagnostic characteristic relations of the
remedies to the natural diseases. This more rational, though
more difficult way, which had to be gone over with a good deal
of skeptical inquiry as to the results obtained by provings on
(
•
238
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
healthy persons, and the slowly maturing knowledge of the
remedies, had the advantage, that while gradually the external
part, the physiognomy of the remedy, came within my cogni-
zance, I at the same time learned to adapt them according to their
probable internal character to the fundamental essence of the
disease; thus I was saved the mechanical gathering together of
the symptoms, which has to be repeated so often, takes so much
time and is often so unreliable; I needed not, therefore, in any
morbid conditions which were analogically related, spend any
time in merely covering the symptoms."
This method, which is surely a very correct one, gave him a
thorough knowledge of Materia Medica, which with his excellent
preparatory medical training he could put to good use. In the
summer of 1833, he went to Merseburg to fill my place as a
homœopathic physician. The confidence there enjoyed by
Homœopathy and the personal trust put in him on account of
his successful cures, his great care and kindliness, brought him
a very rich practice, fully 2,500 patients a year. This practice.
required the expenditure of a good deal of strength, as it also
extended to the surrounding country, and necessitated much
traveling and writing. Nevertheless he found the time to con-
duct his journal of cases treated with great exactness, and we
hope to receive from it, through his successor, Dr. Grube, many
instructive communications. All this work could, of course, be
only done by denying himself many enjoyments, and especially
by limiting his social relaxations, and he sought and found relief
from his labors chiefly in the bosom of his family; he seldom
took part in public entertainments, though he was by no means
an ascetic. In the beginning of his practice he used only the
low potencies, later on higher ones, and toward the end of his
career he was a great admirer of high potencies, using both
those made by Jenichen and those made by Petters, though he
preferred those by Jenichen.
Being always healthy, he probably gave too little heed to the
first symptoms of a hepatic disease, continued riding in a rumb-
ling rough carriage, until a violent inflammation of the diseased
organ compelled him to a more serious treatment of his malady.
In this Stapf gave him his faithful assistance. The inflamma-
tion of the liver was also soon removed, and he began to recover
somewhat, and thought that by drinking the water of Carlsbad
OF HOMEOPATHY.
239
at home he might remove the induration of the liver that re-
mained; but the result did not correspond with his expectations;
the emaciation and loss of strength very rapidly increased, and
so he soon succumbed to his incurable disease, which likely had
commenced even a long time before he had become aware of it,
as he had not been able to bear any tight clothing on his abdo-
men for a long time before.
In him Homœopathy lost a brave champion, although he
advanced and spread it actively more by his cures than by his
writings. His memory will long be cherished in fond hearts.
-RUMMEL. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 35, pp. 302, 337.)
EHRMANN, FRANCIS. But little is known of this early
Homœopathist. He was, in 1835, in the practice of the new
system in Carlisle, Pa., which place he left in 1844. It is probable
that Dr. Ehrmann also practiced in other towns in Pennsylvania.
(World's Con., vol. 2, p. 690.)
ELWERT, WILHELM.
Was an early homoeopathic phy-
sician and author, who died in Harberg, in his 74th year, Janu-
ary, 1867 (or December, 1866). (A. H. Z., vol. 74, p. 24.)
ENZ. The Zeitung and Quin lists of 1832 and 1834, locate
this man in Austria, but do not give the name of the town.
EPPS, JOHN. From the Hom. World: Our readers will have
noticed with regret the death of this well-known and highly-
esteemed physician, which took place at his residence, in Great
Russell street, Bloomsbury. He was the son of an active re-
former of a past generation, John Epps, of Seven Oaks, Kent.
Dr. Epps, inherited much of the energy and public spirit of his
father, and scarcely any important public movement for the ad-
vancement of commercial, political or religious freedom has, dur-
ing the last forty years, been inaugurated without receiving his
sympathy and aid. His love of religious equality brought him
early in life into active co-operation with the eminent reformers
of his day in procuring Catholic emancipation, and the repeal of
the Test Acts, in resistance to church rates and the relief of Non-
conformists. A disciple of Major Cartwright, he associated him-
self with Francis Place, W. J. Fox, Burdett, and the men of
1833 in the council of the political unions in London, in agitat-
ing for the Reform Bill. He was an active member of the Anti-
corn-law League, and with Campbell, Lord Dudley Stuart,
240
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Mazzini, and others, joined organizations in favor of the Polish,
Italian, Hungarian, and American nationalities.
He was educated at Mill Hill, and articled to Dr. Drury. At
eighteen he went to Edinburgh, where he graduated, taking his
degree at twenty-one years of age. Before this time he had pub-
lished "A New Way of Teaching English Grammar," and other
works. Immediately on taking his degree he came to London
and commenced practice, lecturing also to medical students on
the Materia Medica, etc. Many of the leading men of the pres-
ent day were his pupils. He now published "An Introduction
to Botany," intended as a text-book for his students. He had,
before leaving Edinburgh, embraced the views of Gall and
Spurzheim on the Science of Mind, and fought the battles of
phrenology before the medical bodies of the times. He now
published "Evidences of Christianity Deduced from Phre-
nology," "Horæ Phrenologica," and lectured both in London
and in some of the most important provincial towns on this
favorite science.
In 1831 he became Medical Director of the Royal Jennerian
and London Vaccine Institution, an institution which up to his
death he supported. He was for some time co-editor of the
London Medical and Surgical Journal, and for a long period con-
ducted The Anthropological Magazine, and The Journal of Health
and Disease. He was one of the first practitioners of Homo-
opathy in this country. Attracted by a work written by Dr.
Curie, and afterwards struck by the noble head of Hahnemann,
he made such earnest and thorough study of the subject as led
to his entire renunciation, at once and forever, of old-system-
practice. Whatever he took up he took up with his whole heart
and strength, from a deep conviction of its truth, and it was
eminently so in regard to Homoeopathy. He ever steadily ad-
hered to the doctrines of Hahnemann, whose works, up to within
a week or two of his death, were his daily study. Every night
he took a volume of these works up stairs with him, under his
The beautiful character of this great Master, no less than
the glorious truths brought to light by him, secured this affec-
tionate and firm devotion.
arm.
Henceforward he, by all means in his power, and at much sac-
rifice, sought to spread what he regarded as the truth in medical
science. He lectured frequently on Homœopathy, both in London
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
241
and other large towns; and to medical students, on the Homœo-
pathic Materia Medica, both at the hospital and when his health
failed, at his own house. He published, "What is Homo-
opathy?" "Homœopathy and its Principles Explained," and
other works on the subject. His works on "Constipation,"
"Consumption," "Epilepsy, "Affections of the Head," etc.,
are well known. 'Notes of a New Truth," has been for some
years past edited and chiefly supported by him. From a youth
he was a Liberal, both in politics and religion. Ever taking up
the cause of the oppressed and suffering, very early he turned
his attention to the question of slavery, which was ever among
those subjects dearest to him. He was prominently distinguished
by his love of truth and justice. Truth he must pursue at any
cost. Everyone who knew him remarked and valued his child-
like and unaffected simplicity of character. He had warm and
strong affections, and a tenderness which was extended to the
lowest-created beings. He could not bear that the life even of
an insect should be taken. He was in many cases "a father to
the fatherless." By his patients generally he was much beloved,
and most of them became his personal friends. He had no mean
jealousy or envy, and was severe only against systems; all that
was oppressive, cruel and mischievous he hated, but man he
loved. He died February 12th, in his sixty-fourth year, from an
attack of paralysis, aggravated by acute asthma, from cold. He
had long suffered from asthma, and paralysis supervening, termi-
nated his laborious and useful life. He was interred at Kensal
Green, February 20th, 1869.
The Monthly Hom. Review thus notices him: The death of this
well-known physician and active politician has caused a widely-
spread feeling of regret. One of the earliest members of the pro-
fession in this country to avow his faith in Homœopathy, a clever
lecturer, and popular writer thereon, and extensively engaged in
its practice, Dr. Epps was one of the best-known men of our body.
Dr. Epps was the eldest son of Mr. John Epps, of Seven Oaks,
Kent. He was educated at the Protestant Dissenters' Grammar
School, Mill Hill, near Hendon. After serving an apprentice-
ship to a surgeon of the name of Dury, he proceeded, in 1824, to
Edinburgh, and graduated at its university in 1827. Shortly
after settling in London he lectured on chemistry, botany, and
materia medica at the Hunterian School of Medicine. At this
""
))
242
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
period he became the author of a work on botany, and was for
some time co editor of the London Medical and Surgical Journal.
His attention was drawn to Homœopathy about the year 1837 by
the perusal of a work of the late Dr. Curie's, and the admiration
excited by the phrenological development of the head of Hahne-
mann, as seen in David's well-known bust. In 1838 appeared
his first essay on Homœopathy. He subsequently lectured in
London, Manchester, and other places upon it; and doubtless did
much to extend a knowledge of the system. He is the author
of a well known work on ""
Domestic Medicine," as well as of
others treating of the practical application of Homœopathy;
and for some years he has edited a monthly journal known as
the "Notes of a New Truth." In 1856 or 1857 he delivered a
course of lectures to students on the Materia Medica. Prior to his
adoption of Homoeopathy he was a frequent contributor to the
Lancet. The report of a case of hæmatemesis, which he pub-
lished in that journal in 1843, drew forth such an avalanche of
letters from all parts of the country that Mr. Wakley, trembling
for the security of his property, dared not repeat the experiment
of permitting the appearance of the report of a case of disease
treated homoeopathically in his journal. Accordingly, similar
cases were afterwards refused insertion, and Dr. Epps published
them in a pamphlet entitled, "Rejected Cases; with a Letter to
Thomas Wakley, Esq., on the Scientific Character of Homo-
opathy."
Dr. Epps had an intense veneration for Hahnemann; and was
undeviating in his advocacy of all the practical details and theo-
retical speculations contained in the Organon. As a physician
he obtained the confidence and warm friendship of a large circle
of patients.
In the political world Dr. Epps, following in the footsteps of
his father, occupied a prominent position as a radical of the most
uncompromising order. In every political agitation for forty
years past, as well as in many philanthropic movements, he has
taken an active part, both as a speaker and a writer. He was,
we believe, on one occasion a candidate for parliamentary
honors.
For some years he has suffered much from asthma, and his
death, which took place on the 12th ult., resulted from a paralytic
seizure complicated with an acute attack of his old enemy.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
243
was attended during his last illness by Dr. David Wilson, to
whom he was warmly attached. He was buried at Kensal Green
Cemetery on the 19th ult., in the presence of a large number of
political and personal friends.
The British Journal of Homeopathy give the following obituary:
As time advances the elder race and early pioneers of Homœ-
opathy are falling off one by one. We have now to register the
death of one more of the distinguished men of the new school.
Some have worked to advance a knowledge of Homœopathy
chiefly among their professional brethren; some chiefly among
the public. To the latter class belongs our departed colleague;
and yet it was not exclusively to the general public that he ad-
dressed himself, for he also sought to propagate a knowledge of
Homœopathy among students and practitioners of medicine by
courses of lectures on our Materia Medica, which he delivered
partly at the Hahnemann Hospital and partly at his own house.
He was born on the 15th of February, 1805. He was early des-
tined for the medical profession, and after serving an apprentice-
ship to a surgeon he went to Edinburgh in 1823, where he com-
pleted his medical studies, and graduated in 1826. During his
sojourn in Edinburgh he contributed to his support by giving in-
struction in Latin, and it happened, by a curious coincidence,
that one of his classical pupils was our distinguished colleague,
Dr. Madden. After taking his degree Dr. Epps settled in
London, where his natural activity would not allow him to be
content with mere practice, but led him to deliver lectures on
chemistry, botany and materia medica at the Hunterian School
of Medicine. He published a text-book on botany about this
period. He was for some time co-editor of the London Medical
and Surgical Journal, and later of the Anthropological Journal,
and of the Journal of Health and Disease. In 1831 he was ap-
pointed director of the Jannerian Vaccine Institution. He was
an ardent believer in phrenology, on which he lectured fre-
quently. Soon after the introduction of Homoeopathy into Eng-
land he became one of its most zealous partisans, and en-
deavored to spread a knowledge of it among the public by
lectures in London and various provincial towns, and by several
popular works, such as "What is Homoeopathy?" 'Homœo-
pathy and its Principles Explained," and a work on "Domestic
Medicine." He established a journal for the propagation of the
-
((
C
244
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
doctrines and practice of the new school, entitled "Notes of a New
Truth," to which he contributed up to the time of his decease.
The few numbers of this journal we have seen did not impress
us very favorably as regards its scientific or professional character;
but as it was addressed to non-professionals alone we have no
doubt it fulfilled the intentions of its editor. On first embracing
Homœopathy he forwarded some cases to his old friend and
brother radical, T. Wakley, for publication in the Lancet. They
were, of course, refused, and this gave Dr. Epps an opportunity
of publishing the cases, under the title of "Rejected Cases,"
with a vigorous letter to the editor of the Lancet.
Dr. Epps in politics was always an advanced Liberal, and was
as keenly fond of making a speech denouncing tyrants anywhere
in the world as of giving a lecture on phrenology or Homœo-
pathy. He had a great command of words, a fine, sonorous
voice, and much animation of manner in speaking; though, like
many Londoners, he was somewhat uncertain in his distribution
of the letter "h.'
""
In practice he was much liked by, and inspired great confi-
dence in his patients, of whom he had a large clientèle, and by
whom he will be much missed.
For some years past he had been subject to asthma, and his
health latterly had been visibly failing. On the 31st of January
he was attacked with paralysis, and though he seemed to be re-
covering from this, an attack of asthma supervening carried him
off on the 12th of February, at the precise age of sixty-four. He
was buried at Kensal Green, amid a large concourse of medical
and political friends. A eulogy was pronounced on his grave by
one of the latter.
Dr. Epps occupied a large space in the public eye in connection
with Homœopathy, and though he cultivated rather the art of
making popular appeals on its behalf than that of addressing
his professional brethren, we believe him to have been a man of
good scientific attainments, as he was undoubtedly a man of un-
tiring energy and perseverance.
The following is a review of the "Diary of the late John Epps,
M. D., Edin. Edited by Mrs. Epps. Kent & Co."
This life of John Epps, most lovingly edited by his widow,*
* We have discovered only one error in this volume. At page 157 James
Simpson, the phrenologist, is mistaken for Dr. Simpson, the chloroformist.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
245
•
will be read by all Kindly-disposed Homoeopathists with both
pleasure and amusement.
It is the life of a man who raised himself to eminence by con-
siderable natural ability, indomitable perseverence, and kind-
hearted and persuasive ways.
He was born in Kent in the year 1805, and seems to have
been always a good boy, though he lays no claim to having been
one of those wonderful children so frequently met with by
mothers. He received a sound education in English, Latin, and
Greek, and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to an apothecary
in the city.
In this position he was much scandalized by the one-sidedness
of his master's prescriptions, which seem to have been almost
entirely confined to purging pills and draughts.
At the age of eighteen he went to Edinburgh to study medi-
cine. He made his entry into Scotland by way of the Firth of
Forth, and on first beholding the beautiful panorama which sur-
rounded him, he was filled with wonder and emotion at finding
himself in the romantic land of Scott and Burns, while Edin-
burgh itself by night and by day filled him with delight.
In Edinburgh he made some interesting friends, including
George and Andrew Combe, he having become an ardent
phrenologist.
Before admission to the phrenological society he was obliged
to have his cranium examined by a committee of members. This
committee reported very favorably of his head, but warned him
that his reflective organs were developed in excess of his percep-
tive organs, and that he would do well to study minutely the
physical sciences. This judgment he at once submitted to, and
set himself to study the most minute of sciences-botany, and
with such success that in botany he took the College gold
medal.
it.
His father having become reduced in circumstances, John
Epps determined that he would not be a burden to the old gen-
tleman, and therefore with a self-denial and simplicity common
in the north, but rare among Englishmen as compared with
Scotchmen, he resolved to live on ten shillings a week and earn
Accordingly, he hired a sitting room with a bed-closet for six
shillings a week, while his food cost only four shillings a week.
246
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
His diet was coffee without milk or sugar, and a bit of dry bread
for breakfast, and for dinner the third part of a haddock. The
first day's dinner was hot haddock, the second day cold haddock,
and the third day baddock warmed up with onions. He took
tea in the evening without sugar or milk, while the pièce de ré-
sistance, the grand national dish of the natives, was reserved for
supper, namely, oatmeal porridge and milk. In order to meet
the expense of this luxurious mode of living he gave lessons in
Latin, Greek, and botany.
Whether this diet was sufficient he does not say, but he seems
to have been at this time somewhat weakly in health, and, to
the surprise of all true Caledonians, he found the climbing of
Arthur's Seat so severe a trial that he fell while attempting to
descend, and injured himself severely.
He took his degree when twenty-one years of age, and gained
the prizes in Latin and Greek as well as in botany.
Returning to London, he established himself first in the Edge-
ware Road, removing shortly afterwards to South Audley street,
thence to Seymour street, thence to Berners street, and finally to
Great Russell street, where he remained during his busy and
arduous career.
John Epps from an early age declared himself an enemy to
church establishments and a paid ministry. Accordingly, while
in Edinburgh, he joined the Scotch Baptists, a very small sect,
but one quite in harmony with his opinions. In this assembly
there was no fixed minister, but those who were moved spoke.
This arrangement was one entirely after John Epps' heart, and
at the early age of nineteen he began to distinguish himself as a
preacher.
On settling in London he essayed to join the same body, but
after a time, finding there was a ruling spirit in that assembly
who operated disadvantageously towards him by too much
monopolizing the gift of speech, he left the body, and we after-
wards find him regularly and for many years preaching to
mechanics at Dock Head Church.
Practice at first being very limited, John Epps became a lec-
turer at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, and afterwards at
Westminster.
At first he tells us he had only one pupil, but he addressed him
as if he were an important audience, and this pluck and endur-
ance gradually gained him considerable classes.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
247
Matrimony was all his life a favorite theme with him, and he
appears to have proposed to a young lady before going to Edin-
burgh on the theory that an engagement would steady and stim-
ulate him in his work. Again, in Edinburgh he proposed to a
good woman twenty years older than himself, but she seems to
have been wiser than John, and showed him the folly
of the idea in the eyes of "his father, the church, and the
world." Ultimately he married wisely and happily in 1831.
In 1840, very much from the flattering light which the cele-
brated bust threw upon Hahnemann in the phrenological point
of view, Dr. Epps embraced Homœopathy. So good a head must,
he thought, produce good ideas.
Thus was presented a new and profitable subject for oratory,
and there is no doubt that Dr. Epps quickly lectured himself
into a very large homeopathic practice, especially among the
lower middle and lower classes of society. He seemed to aspire
to become the Hahnemann of Great Britain, and we suspect that
the doctor's private opinion was that he alone in Great Britain
worthily represented the great Master; and certainly no disciple
of that origi-nal thinker and indefatigable worker, either in
Europe or America, did so much to popularize Homœopathy.
His ability for lecturing and his love of public speaking
seemed to grow with what it fed on, and we find him in London,
Edinburgh, Manchester, and Dublin, forever lecturing on
Homœopathy, phrenology, and other subjects.
Indeed, few have felt so much difficulty as Dr. Epps in re-
straining either the tongue or the pen; and not only did he edit
The Christian Physician, The Anthropological Journal, and other
periodicals, but an incessant series of letters seems to have been
addressed by him to the Times and other newspapers on every
possible opportunity; and although few of these letters seem to
have been accepted, yet he wearied not, but he rather was for-
ever stimulated to further ambitious schemes for the public
good, having on we do not know how many occasions singly or
as one among others petitioned the British Parliament against
all possible encroachment on the liberty of the subject.
From an early age his ambition as a littérateur took the high-
est flights. At the age of fifteen he attempted the most difficult
of all compositions, and took as his theme the greatest subject,
viz., "John, the Baptist; a Tragedy."
248
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Later in life he even contemplated what all the scholarship of
Europe has scarcely achieved—a true translation from the Greek
of the New Testament.
We remember on one occasion, when a student at University
College, going from curiosity to hear him lecture. A batch of
jovial medical students were present, who with ironical clamor
cheered all his denunciations of old physic; but the doctor only
hit out all the harder, and after a time these young spirits de-
parted with much noise into a more congenial sphere. We con-
sidered it our duty to hear him out, but confess that our reason-
ing faculties remained unconvinced by his eloquence.
So fond was the doctor of lecturing that he confessed to his
wife that he would willingly lecture to the devil if he would only
listen to him. Perhaps, like Burns, he felt-
"But fare ye weel, auld Nickie Ben;
O wad ye tak a thought an' men',
Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken-
Still hae a stake;
I'm wae to think upon yon den
Even for your sake."
His sable majesty having declined the invitation of the in-
trepid doctor, he shortly afterwards somewhat inconsistently
delivered a series of orations at the Dock Head Church, to dem-
onstrate that no such person existed. This bold assertion drew
upon him a world of abuse, and some patients declined to be
treated by one holding such heterodox views. These frequent
public appearances, and the active part Dr. Epps took against
church rates, war, despots, corn laws, and other old institutions,
brought him into contact with many noted individuals, such as
Hume, Lady Byron, George and Andrew Combe, Anti-corn-law
Wilson, Mazzini, Duncombe, Stansfeld, Kossuth, and Robert
Owen.
His incessant talking against established things was amusingly
illustrated on his wedding day, a day of all days on which one
might feel disposed to dispise public politics. However, not so
thought John Epps; but finding himself compelled to be married
at church, he began a long argument with the clergyman against
the tyranny of ecclesiastical establishments. He tells us very
naïvely that the clergyman expressed much sympathy with him,
but observed that such being the law he must comply with it.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
249
A kindly love of the lower animals was a very interesting
trait in Dr. Epps' character. When his old parrot died, he wept
as if he had lost a friend; and when Old Tom, the cat, departed
this life he felt very unhappy, and could not look on the dead
body, but had it decently interred below the pear tree in his
back garden. He tells us that the older he grew the more deeply
he felt for the suffering of the lower animals; and with grace and
tenderness he describes how his old, faithful dog took his last
little stroll about the common at Warlingham. He sat with his
back leaning against a tree, looking wistfully around him, and
was then carried back into the house to lie down and die.
We are told that Dr. Epps could very rarely see any fun in
conundrums, and we suspect that the worthy doctor, although
very fond of joking and punning in his own way, was not largely
gifted with that wonderful union of wisdom and wit called
humor a quality which analyzes with subtlety those incon-
gruities of conduct and speech which often cause even our best
friends to smile.
His discussion with the clergyman on the eve of his marriage
is an illustration of this. We also remember, when a young
man, belonging to a phrenological society. Among the busts
illustrating the science, there were two of Dr. Epps, one repre-
senting him before, and the other after his marriage, in order to
illustrate how the use of the domestic affections affected the base
of the brain. No doubt the doctor regarded the illustrations as
a simple matter of science, but the other members of the society
were inclined to regard the fact in a more comical aspect.
Again, he saw no good in bringing in the new year with a
cheerful glass of hot, but thought it wiser to rise betimes and
usher in the day with, we suppose, a cup of cocoa.
On one occasion a woman, a dispensary patient, got up and
gave him a sound kiss; he severely rebuked her; and at break-
fast discussed the incident with his wife, when they came to the
conclusion that the woman was either insane or extremely grate-
ful for medical benefits received.
The doctor narrates many very amusing anecdotes, introduces
some very comical characters, and utters some wise and useful
axioms; on the other hand, the following seem too commonplace
to merit immortal relationship with their author. They might
have passed at the tea-table, but their flavor seems to disappear
250
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in print. For instance, "Consistency is one of the character-
istics of truth," is surely self-evident; and, "Those who wear
white robes in church should beware of becoming whited
sepulchres," seems more for the platform than for sober re-
flection.
The idea is hazarded that Dr. Epps had so penetrating a
knowledge of disease that he was never deceived; yet, no doubt,
many of us remember that his deafness rendered his diagnosis in
heart and lung disease far from reliable.
The later years of Dr. Epps' life were in part spent at War-
lingham and Ashurst Wood, at which places he had successively
a small country house. He revelled in the freedom and beauty
of the country, digging in his garden, feeding the cocks and
hens and pigs, playing with his dogs, and having admiring
friends ever and again staying with him.
But even in the country, just as on his marriage day, the
church is a difficulty with him; and accordingly we find that on
a certain occasion when his coachman required a new great coat,
the doctor requested the dissenting minister to name to him an
honest tailor who disapproved of church rates.
Dr. Epps fell into feeble health a few years before his death.
He suffered from heart disease, and as the days of his pilgrimage
drew to a close he seemed more and more to enjoy the sweet
beauties of the country, "the hum of bees, the songs of birds,
the lisp of children and their earliest words."
The year 1869 was begun with much difficulty. He had great
weakness and shortness of breath, but he saw a few patients up
to the very last. He died on the 12th of February.
To his medical creed he was faithful even unto death, placing
himself with simple trust under the care of the most uncom-
promising of all rigid Hahnemannians.
On ascending to his bed-chamber for the last time, with his
usual love of animals, he took a kindly farewell of Poll the
parrot, and then laid him down to die.
With his last breath he expressed his humble, yet confident
faith in the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Great Father of
all spirits.
Dr. Epps was of short stature, but sturdy frame. Before we
became a Homœopathist we used to admire the little man as we
occasionally met him in Great Russell street, with his broad-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
251
thists.
brimmed hat, his elastic step, and his beaming, yet self-confident
face.
He was and is regarded by a large class of working people as
a prophet in medicine; and although in the estimation of the
more fastidious he was too popular to be scientific, and, perhaps,
too voluble to be profound, he must yet ever be remembered by
those who knew him as one who ever desired to benefit his race,
and as a simple, kind hearted, true, and pious man. (Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 27, p. 350; vol. 33, p. 290. Mon. Hom. Rev., vol. 13,
p. 189. Hom. World, vol. 4, p. 67. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 76.)
ESCALLIER. Was one of first of the French Homœopa-
EVEREST, REV. THOMAS. The British Journal contains
the following: We regret to record the death of the Reverend
Thomas R. Everest, rector of Wickwar, one of the oldest homo-
opathic authors in this country. Mr. Everest did much to
popularize a knowledge of Homœopathy, and is well-known as
the author of some extremely well-written and useful publica-
tions on the new system of medicine. In 1834 he published “A
Letter Addressed to the Medical Practitioners of Great Britain
on the Subject of Homoeopathy." The following year he gave
to the world "A Popular View of Homoeopathy," which has
passed through several editions here and in America, and has
been translated into German. In 1851 he published a sermon
which he preached for the benefit of the Hahnemann Hospital,
which contains a good many allusions to Homœopathy, and also
a very witty and sarcastic reply to Dr. Rose Cormack, called
forth by some attempt of that worthy to ridicule Mr. Everest's
sermon. The "Hora Homœopathica" published in 1853, we be-
lieve, likewise proceeded from his pen. Mr. Everest was a
warm admirer of Hahnemann, whose friendship and intimacy he
enjoyed during the last years of the veteran's life.
He was a
great stickler for pure Hahnemannism, and many a sound rating
has he given to those homeopathic practitioners who ventured to
dispute any of the maxims of the founder of Homœopathy. Mr.
Everest died on the 15 of June (1855). We believe that the dis-
ease that proved fatal was apoplexy. His loss will be sincerely
deplored by all who take an interest in the propagation of
Homœopathy in this country. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 13, þ.
477; vol. 14, Þ. 193.)
·
252
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
FANGEL, HOLGET. Dr. Hansen writes of this man: He
was a talented man who, having been entered at the University
of Copenhagen in 1812, passed his examination with great credit
in 1818. Having pursued his studies at the Fredricks Hospital
for three years, Fangel was made an M. D. at the University of
Thiel in 1821, and was in 1829 nominated town physician at
Fredericia, where he remained until 1836. In 1835 he published
"Experimental Homœopathic Treatment," containing a descrip-
tion of 163 different cases which he had treated homoeopathically
during his stay at Fredericia, from 1833 to 1835. A review of
this book, published in the Physician's Library, by C. Otto,
Professor of Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, occa-
sioned a very witty answer from Fangel, in which he maintained
that one of the colleagues of Otto, Prof. Wendl, had declared
the Homœopathists to be quite right in considering Aconite an
excellent remedy and of marvellous effect in cases of inflamma-
tion, and had told Fangel that he himself had a very high
opinion of the homoeopathic system. Fangel died of apoplexy
in Copenhagen, April, 1843. (Inter. Hom. Con., 1891, p. 985.)
FAUSTUS, PATER. Was the prior of the Brothers of
Charity at Laubach, and in 1830 he was practicing Homœopathy
with such success that he was widely known as Pater Faustus.
He continued to practice after the religious order to which he
belonged was dissolved. He was the means of making many
converts. (World's Hom. Con., vol. 2, p. 204.)
FICKEL, C. W. It may not be amiss to tell the story of
one who, while pretending to be a zealous Homoeopathist, yet
really used every effort in his power to bring the system into dis-
repute; the strange tale of a brilliant but thoroughly unprin-
cipled man, Fickel.
He was a forger of provings arranged to appear to be the real
result of testing medicines upon healthy persons. For a time
he succeeded in deceiving nearly the entire profession.
Rapou says of this brilliant rascal: In the year of 1831 the
degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred by the University of
Leipzig upon two young students, who were destined to exercise
upon our school very diverse influences. One was Noack, who
is among our most learned writers; the other was Fickel. This
last had conceived a plan to get himself received among the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
253
practitioners of the new art, and to publish for that right many
experiences, observations, imaginary pathogeneses, pseudony-
mous and false books, by which he hoped to obtain the favor of
his pretended colleagues.
Thus it was that he proceeded to expose the fictitiousness, to
demonstrate the falsity of experiments accepted as true; in a
word, by the power of an infamous management, to accuse of
nullity all the forthcoming work of the homoeopathic school and
to acquire by this great work of destruction an immense reputa-
tion. We know how it ended.
A philologist of rare merit, of great erudition, Fickel de-
voted himself and his talents with great energy. Forthwith
he left Leipzig to go and develop his projects in the little Saxon
village of Zwickau. The homoeopathist, Haas, to whom we are
indebted for a well known repertory, lived here, and Fickel
sought to gain his friendship and to make himself familiar with
his works and ideas. Haas communicated all without reserve.
Soon after Haas received the following letter from Hahne-
mann; "I send you in this a cutting libel against you and
against the little book that you are publishing. It will appear
in the German Indicator General. The editor of that journal
has sent it to me that I may know and answer it in the following
number. It will be easy for you to prepare a refutation and to
send it to me very soon that I may hasten its publication in
pamphlet form. I advise your answer to be calm and tranquil,
you will more surely gain public opinion. I count that best."
Coethen, October 13, 1832.
Your devoted,
HAHNEMANN.
This libel was signed, Fickel. This imposter, thus check-
mated, withdrew his manuscript. A few days later there ap-
peared at Zwickau a great number of copies of a caustic satire
on Homœopathy by Dr. Lekcif (anagram for Fickel).
It was a
beginning. This too transparent pseudonym was speedily
changed to many other names unknown.
He returned to Leipzig with the intention of continuing the
projects so worthily commenced. He soon published a book en-
titled; "Practical Essays and Dissertations, upon many points
in the homœopathic doctrines augmented by some new remedies
for the use of the whole world of physicians. By L. Heine,
-
1834."
254
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
At the same time he ingratiated himself with all the practicing
Homœopathists, including his old classmate, Noack, assiduously
cultivating his friendship. One day thinking his plan suffici-
ently assured, and Noack easy to convince, he invited him to
pass the evening in a wine shop, and spoke to him of an ex-
cellent speculation consisting of publishing treatises on patho-
genesy for which he knew the booksellers would pay well, and
for which they could easily prepare schedules of symptoms. He
insisted upon the advantages of arranging pathogenetic tables
in a manner to excite the curiosity of the professors.
There was in medicine as illustrated by Homœopathy, a large
path open to delusion and to deceit, that might be followed alike
by conscientious men and by charlatans, exact observers and
enthusiastic spirits; in the search to discover the effects of
remedies upon the healthy body.
At the same time that a true disciple of the art devoted him-
self to this laborious experimentation, writing at length the
phenomena that he observed, what should hinder the maker of
dupes to lay upon paper a series of symptoms, the fruits of his
invention, and to publish them in a book as the results of actual
observation?
What other means, what manner more certain and easy to
strike a fatal blow to the new doctrine, and to spread confusion
and error among the knowledge needful for its practice?
Fickel, repulsed with indignation by Noack, commenced this
work alone. He soon published the one after the other, patho-
geneses of the following remedies: Aquilegia, Actea spicata,
Triplex olida, Cainca, Nigella, Bismuthum nitricum, Strontiana
carbonica, Verbena officinalis, Molybdena, and Osmium. He called
this last the antipsoric above all others. These publications,
complete in all respects, and the appearance after 1834, of many
anonymous works, greatly attracted the attention of the entire
homoeopathic world. Some rejoiced to see homoeopathic litera-
ture so greatly enriched, and thinking of this alone abstained
from and praised complacently their unknown author. Others,
rendered suspicious by the pseudonym, subjected these produc-
tions to a severe examination. The allopathic ideas modified to
suit the Hahnemannian, the very complete pathogenetic tables,
the many successful experiments thus made, such as they had
not seen in practice, assisted in unravelling this tissue of lies.
•
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
255
Stapf and Arnold, without judging these works, praised their
tendency; Gross had raised doubts regarding their value, but
Noack, Trinks and Helbig, without consulting each other, reached
the bottom of the imposture. Trinks distinctly pointed out the
authors to be knaves, who, under borrowed names, contaminated
and abused science. Helbig, well read in the knowledge of the
materia medica of the ancients, recognized that the physiological
effects attributed to Verbeca were to be found complete in an
ancient monograph on the Veronica; that all the other patho-
geneses of this pseudo experimenter consisted in a collection of
symptoms gleaned like those in studies formerly made upon
other medicinal substances in the manner of the eclectics, who
borrow from every system to construct their own.
In 1835 he published, under the pseudonym of Hofbauer, a
book entitled: "Homoeopathic Treatment of Surgical Diseases,"
followed by the study of new and very important antipsoric
(Osmium). The critics, good natured and inattentive, were dis-
posed only to praise this work that they regarded as homoeo-
pathic, but those who were on their guard appealed this time
against these praises, against this foolish criticism, that com-
mended with closed eyes every production decorated with the
name of the new school. Everyone was aroused by these hard
words. There was inquietude, a general alarm. Noack now
determined not to remain inactive under the force of these per-
fidious attacks, but to discover their source and to get at the
root of this evil that thus threatened to ruin our school. He
carefully studied this book and recognized in it the results
of the insidious and impudent propositions that Fickel had made
to him. He easily discovered in him the author of these patho-
geneses. Soon after he identified the pretended Hein and Hof-
bauer as one and the same author. Following these investigations
he found out that the famous Real Lexicon, that great homœo-
pathic encyclopædia, edited by a society of physicians, was more
the work of one person, who alone composed the society mentioned,
and with a fertility marvellous, but very deplorable, had begun
to change all the points of our literature. Noack sought to in-
duce the editor who had charge of the encyclopædia to confide
in known and conscientious physicians, and upon his refusal he
denounced the work as the production of an imposter. The
editor, alarmed, hastened to effect an agreement between Fickel
and Noack which resulted in a meeting.
256
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
It was the intention to conceal near the place of meeting, and
within hearing, two persons, sent by a lawyer, to serve as wit-
nesses in case the affair should come before the courts. Fickel
avowed himself a party to these maneuvres and renewed his old
propositions. Noack resisted coldly and severely; he insisted,
besought, and finally begged him not to divulge anything, and
withdrew with an expression of rage and menace.
After this event Fickel published two treatises upon the allo-
pathic practice, in which he exposed the falsity of our method
with such aplomb that he seemed to demonstrate his unshaken
faith. Soon after the appearance of these two volumes, under
the pseudonym of Herting, followed a memoir of Hofbauer, in
which he newly illustrated the logic of our doctrines.
It was impossible to remain longer a spectator of this work of
darkness; but what plan to follow? To ruin completely a man
of small fortune and the father of a family; to enter upon a
scandalous suit; thinking of all this Noack decided to write to
him. You are entirely unmasked," said he to him, "but I
will, nevertheless, conceal all if you will promise me to renounce
all your projects." Fickel replied that he would soon reveal the
authorship of these works, that later all would be explained,
without Noack troubling himself; that he understood the spite
with which he pursued him. He had, in effect, a good reason
for dissimulating for some time longer, and Noack, had also the
mournful thought that he could not as yet unmask him and that
he would wait for a more favorable occasion. Soon after there was
to be a nomination for the post of physician-in-chief in the Hom-
œopathic Hospital, left vacant by the departure of Schweikert.
After the bad management of this physician, and the disorder
which he had left in the institution, no one wished to occupy the
position.
Each one who had for a long time practiced in Leipzig had
gained a right in the direction of the hospital, but no one pre-
sented himself as a candidate. Noack, who was holding himself
back, found himself in a manner carried to the front ranks in
the suite of Fickel. Fickel, to reveal what he knew of his
character and of his works, was not possible at the time. It was
not expedient that he should accuse his rival. The intrigues of
our knave overpowered the simple demand of Noack. This
viper entered the bosom of the new school, the better to wound,
((
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
257
penetrated this time to the heart. C. W. Fickel was nominated
physician-in-chief to the Homoeopathic Hospital of Leipzig.
From that time he had no farther wish for the management.
Noack prepared his work, presented before a justice his accusa-
sation in due form, followed with the exposition of all these
facts, which he published in a little book under the title of "Olla
Podrida."*
Fickel did not long remain in this situation, but was forced to
go to hide his disgrace in some unknown place. But the short
time that he remained at the head of the clinic sufficed to accom-
plish his favorite project. In 1840 there appeared in the medical
world a book with this strange title: " Proof Positiveness of the
Nothingness of Homoeopathy, by Fickel, Physician in-Chief to
the Homœopathic Hospital at Leipzig."
This announcement greatly excited all the practitioners of the
new art in Germany and the Allopaths triumphed for the instant.
The publishing the maneuvres of Fickel would have removed the
influence of his last book, but the "Olla Podrida," prepared in
secret, was seen by almost no one, whilst the lively writing of
the ex-physician of the hospital of Leipzig extended to all quar-
ters, attacking at its base the structure of the young school.
The truth came out slowly day by day and ended by completely
hiding this scientific scandal.
Fickel's "Real Lexicon" was published in five large 8vo.
volumes. The British Journal thus mentions it: "We notice
this publication for the purpose of warning our readers against
it, as it is the work of the notorious cheat and imposter, Fickel,
and not, as is falsely stated in the title, by a Society of Home-
opathists. Of course, when the character of Fickel was detected
and exposed, and the authorship traced to him, the work lost its
value."+
Dr. James Y. Simpson quoted from Fickel's "Nothingness of
Homœopathy," in his "Homoeopathy, its Tenets and Tenden-
cies,” and others have also used this liar as an authority.
*´´Olla Podrida." Ein Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte der Homoopathie.
Ist Heft: Lekciv, Ludwig Heine, Jul. Theod. Hofbauer, C. E. Herting der
Verein mehrer Homoopathiker als Verfasserschaft der homoopath. Real-
encyklopadie oder Dr. Carl Wilhelm Fickel, Oberarzt an der homoop Heil-
anstalt zu Leipzig. Dresden: Arnold. 1836. 80.
† A copy of this work may be found in the library of Hahnemann Med-
ical College of Philadelphia.
258
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Puhlman, in his "History of Homoeopathy in Germany,"
says that Fickel managed the hospital for one year before he was
found out.
Dudgeon, in a foot-note to his "Biography of Hahnemann,"
thus notices this rascal: "The salary (at the hospital) excited
the avarice of an individual named Fickel, and he did his utmost
to gain the position. Among other expedients to gain his object
he published a little book purporting to contain symptoms of
various medicines and cures effected by them. He so ingratiated
himself with the managers, by his apparent zeal, that he at
length got the situation; but shortly afterwards the fraudulent
character of his pretended physiological provings was fully ex-
posed by the celebrated homœopathic physician, Dr. A. Noack,
and Master Fickel was speedily ejected from his post. To re-
venge himself he published a book entitled, 'Direct Proof of
the Nullity of Homœopathy,' respecting which it may be said
that it is nearly on a par as to truthfulness with his former would-
be homœopathic work. The last thing known about him is that
he was suffering imprisonment for some swindling transaction.
This respectable individual is a great authority with allopathic
writers against Homoeopathy in this country (England). His
career is too well known in Germany to allow him to be used
there with equal effect." (Rapou, vol. 2, p. 149. N. Am. Jour.
Hom., vol. 2, p. 457. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 1, p. 406; vol. 12,
p. 137. World's Hom. Con., 1876, vol. 2, p. 27. Dudgeon's
Lectures on Homeopathy.)
FIELITZ, H. A. In 1832, Fielitz was practicing at Lauban.
Rapou says: The two practitioners who continued with great
success the work of Muhlenbein were Fielitz and Hartlaub. A
short time after his arrival at Brunswick, Fielitz was appointed
professor in the School of Medicine in that city; this nomination
very important for the advance of our method, was followed by
an act still more favorable. By a ministerial ordinance of
March, 1842, it was established that hereafter the practice of
Homœopathy would only be permitted to those physicians who
justified their knowledge of it by an examination before one of
the professors of the faculty. This office of examiner was con-
ferred upon our confrére. The Hahnemannian doctrine received
the right of citizenship in the domain of science from whence it
had been excluded. Many practicing Homœopaths, however,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
259
were not altogether satisfied with the favor; Rummel among
other things, complained that this examination was not obliga-
tory for all the pupils; he demanded a thing impossible in the
actual state of medical study; because the principles of the two
schools were so greatly opposed, Muhlenbein held other opinions.
"My idea," said he, "is that the young men after they have
finished their studies should experiment under the care of an
old physician, with at least four medicinal substances; this to
be one of the duties of repetition. Hahnemann had often ex-
pressed a fear that his principle would be badly applied from a
lack of profound study in the Materia Medica, and a lack of
knowledge of its pathogeneses.
Fielitz well understood the duties of his position. He simply
wished the truth to be made manifest. He only compelled the
pupils who were in favor of the new doctrine to pass an exami-
nation on the branches concerning it. To justify the confidence
of the government, Fielitz published a book on the relations of
Homœopathy to the civil administration; he mentioned the
courts, the examinations, the sanitary establishments, treated
of regimen, of the preparation and proper dispensing of remedies.
It is a book for the use of governments.
I visited Fielitz at Brunswick, in 1846, I found him entirely
absorbed in his studies and clinical researches. That continual
preoccupation gave to him some of the severe and hypochondria-
cal manner of his friend Gross, whose opinions he shared. Gross
and Fielitz were as one; who knew one knew the other; they
were of all the homoeopathic physicians the two warmest par-
tisans of the high dilutions. The physician of Brunswick was
perhaps the more exclusive than his brother of Juterbogk.
Fielitz had practiced Homœopathy since 1830, and for about two
years had experimented with high potencies. He had acquired
the conviction of the superiority of these preparations in many
cases, and without their help, said he, I would renounce prac-
tice. He had given from the 1600 to the 2000 potency, and
under their action had observed the primary effects much more
frequently than by the Hahnemannian doses, and the cure was
obtained more speedily. He employed the preparations of
Korsakoff. For external application he used the 1st dilution.
(Rapou, vol. 2, pp 598–600. Kleinert, pp. 143, 165, 230, 436.)
-
260
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
FISCHER, ANTON. Under the heading: "Anton Fischer,
the Nestor of Homœopathy in Austria," the Allegemeine
Illustrirte Zeitung (No. 50), appearing in Altona, contains the
following communication, which was adorned with a beautiful
portrait: Anton Fischer, the Nestor of Homœopathy in Austria,
is the son of poor parents and was born in Pribislau, in the
year 1792. From his earliest youth he had a particular pre-
dilection for the natural sciences in general and for botany in
particular, and this latter science he prosecutes with zealous
Industry, even in his advanced age; he takes part in genea-
logical exhibitions and is frequently distinguished by premiums.
Strangers from near and from afar off visit him to look at his
collections of fruits embossed in wax and manufactured by him-
self.
Having no means of subsistence from his parents, and having
to depend upon his own exertions, he came, in his sixteenth year,
into the house of a surgeon, where with great efforts he managed
to support his existence until he was enabled to go to the
University of Olmütz. After finishing his studies, he began his
blessed career of practice and remained faithful to Homoeopathy.
Hahnemann frequently corresponded with him. Fischer was
happy to receive recognition and praise from a quarter from
which his modesty had least expected it.
In his dear fatherland, progress was slow. With his increasing
practice also increased the chicanery in opposition to the heroic
representative of Homœopathy, the practice of which was then
not even tolerated, although even then the "Ritter vom Geist"
("knights of spirits") from the whole of Austria repeatedly
sought and found counsel and help at his hands.
The results achieved by Fischer, especially in the epidemic of
cholera of 1831, likely astonished the opponents of Homœopathy
and may have given the impulse for the cessation of the further
persecutions of the Apostles of Hahnemann. Ever since the year
1836 Austria has possessed railroads and homoeopathic physicians.
Fischer is corresponding member of the societies of homœo-
pathic physicians in Vienna and in Leipzig. He is counted
among the most popular men in Brünn, where for forty years
he has enjoyed the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens.
His self-sacrifice was never so brilliantly displayed as during the
cholera in 1866, where he acquired blessed merit through his
care of the Prussian invading troops.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
261
In the year 1864 he celebrated his fifty years' jubilee as
practicing physician; in the year 1865, at the exhibition of the
Imperial Horticultural Society in Vienna, he received the golden
medal for models of fruits; even the Royal Horticultural Society
in England distinguished him in 1866 at its exhibition in South
Kensington, with the gold medal for his artistic imitation of
fruit.
FISCHER. In the Zeitung for 1874 is the following: Leip-
zig, Aug. 15, 1874. Dr. Fischer, in Brünn, is dead. The
Zeitung list of 1832 mentions the name as a surgeon at Brünn, in
Moravia. The name is also in the Quin list of 1834. Dr. Huber
says that Surgeon Fischer moved to Brünn in 1825, having
already used homoeopathic remedies in chronic cases in Eiben-
schutz, Saar and Rossitz, in Moravia. In Brünn he found two
allies, Steigentisch, a merchant, and Albrecht, a government
official. The former had gone through a course of surgery and
had done medical service in our army during the French war.
Having some practical knowledge, he succeeded in gaining many
adherents to our system among the higher classes of society,
treating mostly chronic cases. Albrecht, a faithful correspond-
ent of Hahnemann's, devoted his attention to the preparation of
homœopathic remedies. Being himself an invalid, he was very
thorough in his studies of the action of remedies. Neither of
these men having diplomas, they merely served to pave the way
for Fischer. He soon gained the confidence of the public, and
attained to a large and profitable practice; but having no right,
as surgeon, to treat internal diseases, he was much harassed by
his adversaries. Frequently brought into court, and threatened
with the loss of his diploma, he determined to leave Brünn
rather than relinquish his favorite method of treatment. In 1831
he removed to Raigen, near Brünn, and was appointed physician
to the monastery of the Benedictines. Now for the first time he
could develop his practice with undisturbed activity. He was
sought by the clergy, the middle classes, and the peasants.
Patients came in crowds from the neighboring provinces, while in
Moravia he was known in every town and village. In fact, he
converted all Moravia to Homœopathy. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
89, p. 64. Zeit. Hom. Klinik, vol. 17, þ. 6. Kleinert, p. 323.
World's Con., vol. 2, p. 200. Pop. Zeit. für hom., Aug. 15, 1874.)
262
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
FISCHER. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Silesia. In the Zeitung list of Homœopaths of 1832 Fischer's
name appears, at which time he was practicing in Frankenstein.
Quin locates him there two years later.
FITZLER. In the Zeitung list of 1832 Fitzler is noted as a
physician in Ilmenau, in Saxe Weimer. Quin calls him Medi-
cal Inspector at Ilmenau.
FLEISCHMANN, WILHELM. On the 23d of Novem-
ber, 1868, died at Vienna, from inflammation of the lungs, in his
70th year, Wilhelm Fleischmann, M. D., Primarius of the
Hospital of the Grey Sisters in Gumpendorf, Knight of the Im-
perial Order of Francis Joseph, of the Papal Order of Gregory,
of the Royal Bavarian Order of Michael, of the Royal Saxon
Order of Albrecht, of the Royal Prussian Kronen Order, of the
Order of Ludwig in Lucca, member of College of Physicians in
Vienna, and of the Central Union of Homoeopathic Physicians of
Germany and of several other learned societies.
Thus again one of our most worthy members has passed from
us! He worked throughout his long life with all his strength
for our Homœopathy, internally and externally, and toward both
sides with the greatest success. This secured for him a rare
recognition on the part of his clients and the deep esteem of his
colleagues.
On the 24th of November Das Vaterland contained the follow-
ing brief necrology: The celebrated and universally esteemed
homoeopathic physician, Dr. Fleischmann, succumbed this (the
23d) evening to arthritic inflammation of the lungs. A deeply
felt loss for many sufferers, who clung to him with a trust that
was not caused merely by the penetration and skill of the physi-
cian, but was also due to him as a man, and, indeed, to a rare
combination of excellent qualities; a clear understanding, a
sympathetic heart, a blameless, thoroughly reliable character
and mature experience. In spite of his advanced age and his
own bodily sufferings, he devoted himself to his avocation up to
his last painful illness, and this, with indefatigable industry, not
only in the hospital of the Merciful Sisters at Gumpendorf, to
which he had given for many years the most indefatigable care,
in his otherwise extended practice. All who came into rela-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
263
tion with him, will preserve for him an imperishable, grateful
memory. Sit ei terra levis.
The history of the life of Dr. Fleischmann is also the history
of the Gumpendorf Hospital of Vienna. In the year 1819, the
practice of Homœopathy was forbidden throughout the Austrian
Empire at the suggestion of Stifft, the physician to the emperor.
It is due to Fleischmann that this unjust restriction was removed.
Dr. George Schmid was the first homoeopathic physician in
charge of the hospital of the Sisters of Charity at Gumpendorf, a
suburb of Vienna. Dr. Schmid took charge when Homoeopathy
was first introduced into the hospital in July, 1833. In January,
1835, Dr. Fleischmann succeeded him. The treatment had been
partly homoeopathic and in part allopathic. Dr. Fleischmaun
says: In January, 1835, the management of the hospital was
committed to me, and at the very outset I got rid of all other
drugs, for I wished rather that to the system should be given a
decided trial in my hands than that the result should be ambigu-
ous from my mode of treatment. I treated all patients without
exception homoeopathically. When the visitation of cholera re-
appeared in 1836, I reported the happy issue of my treatment to
the Government, and the minister, Count Kolowrat, who is ever
forward to advance and protect whatever is good and useful,
graciously took up the matter, and very soon afterwards his
Majesty issued an order cancelling the statute which forbade the
practice of Homœopathy.
This hospital stands in the centre of an unhealthy suburb, but
is conducted with good hygienic care. It contains fifty-four beds,
the nursing is conducted by the Sisters of Charity of the Order
of St. Vincent de Paul. There is also a large dispensary. For
thirty three years Dr. Fleischmann was the active physician of
this hospital. In its wards Homœopathy has been practically
studied by physicians from England, France, Italy, Germany,
and America. It was one of the things for a homeopathic
student to do to visit the homoeopathic hospital of Fleischmann
at Vienna.
In an address delivered by Dr. Fleischmann in 1855, he tells
the story of his introduction to the hospital. (See Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 14, p. 23)
With Drs. Hampe, Watzke and Wurmb, Dr. Fleischmann
was an editor of the Oestrerreiche Zeitschrift für Homöopathie,
264
PIONEER RRACTITIONERS
the organ of the Vienna Provers' Union, of which he was also an
early member. He was very greatly respected by his many
friends. In 1860 he was decorated with the cross of the Franz-
Joseph Order of Knighthood by the Emperor ~f Austria; from
the Pope he received the Order of Gregory, and other similar
distinctions of Bavarian, Saxon, and Prussian origin. He was a
member of the College of Physicians of Vienna, of the Central
Society of German Homoeopathic Physicians, corresponding
member of the British Homoeopathic Society, and of many other
homoeopathic societies.
For many years he had suffered from attacks of gout. His
thoughts were first turned to Homœopathy by being cured of an
atttack of sciatica. Dr. Huber says that in 1828 he was cured
by the Brothers Veith of an obstinate sciatica and thus con-
verted to the system. Another writer says that he was led to
write to Hahnemann regarding the matter, and that Hahnemann
advised him to compare his symptoms with those produced by
the medicines whose effects were to be found in the Materia
Medica Pura, and mentioned several remedies, adding that he
would probably find the similimum amongst them. This he
did and was cured. But he was always troubled with the gouty
diathesis.
In 1842 he sought, with the Vienna provers, to prove Colo-
cynth, but was obliged to desist. He "concluded not to subject
his gouty body to any further experience with Colocynth."
He died of an attack of gouty inflammation of the lungs,
November 23, 1868, at Vienna, in his 70th year.
A writer in the British Journal of Homœopathy, for January,
1869, says: Wherever Homoeopathy has penetrated the name
of Fleischmann is a household word. His connection with the
Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy, at Vienna, at the time of the out-
break of cholera in that city, in 1836, gave him an opportunity of
showing the success of the homoeopathic treatment of that disease,
which proved to be so much greater than that of the ordinary
method, that from that date Homœopathy obtained a firm foot-
ing in the Austrian states. Dr. Fleischmann maintained his
connection with the Gumpendorf Hospital to the last, and he
had the satisfaction of seeing two more hospitals in Vienna
placed under the care of homoeopathic physicians, the governors
of these hospitals being led to do this in consequence of the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
265
success attending Fleischmann's treatment. Many British prac-
titioners, both homoeopathic and allopathic, have followed with
diligence the treatment of the distinguished physician, and at-
tended his daily rounds in the neat and quiet hospital over which
he presided. These gentlemen were all received by him with a
kind of gruff courtesy. Though laconic of speech he was always
perfectly polite and would submit to be questioned on points of
his practice by his inquisitive and often hostile visitors, with
perfect equanimity. With the death of Trinks and Fleischmann
Homœopathy seems to have lost all the old pioneers of Homœ-
opathy and contemporaries of Hahnemann in Germany. (Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 27, p. 175.)
Rapou says that when the cholera came they received at the
Gumpendorf Hospital 732 cases; 488 recovered, 244 died; a mor-
tality of 33 per cent., while the reported mortality of the Allo-
paths was 70 per cent. This result was very much less than that
obtained by the Homœopaths of Bohemia and Hungary, and was
to be attributed to the inexperience of Fleischmann, who had
not treated the epidemic of 1832, and who had but a short time
been practicing Homœopathy. This success resulted in the an-
nulment of the decree of 1819 forbidding Homoeopathy in Aus-
tria. Many allopathic physicians followed the results of the
treatment, among whom was the State Physician, Knoltz, who
expressed satisfaction at the good results. * * * Fleisch-
mann holds a place between the exact Homœopaths and the
reformers. A practicing Allopath and a warm adversary of our
ideas, he had suffered long from a painful gout for which his art
gave no help. Thinking that the new method might be of
use, he wrote to Hahnemann, who was then living at Coethen.
The remedies which he received promptly cured the malady.
During my stay in Vienna I found that the hospital at Gumpen-
dorf had already acquired a certain celebrity in the treatment of
pulmonary afflictions. At the clinic many young doctors at-
tended solely on account of the reputation of Fleischmann, who
had made such a success of this sort of malady. In 1840, out of
fifty cases of pneumonia there were but two deaths. In 1841, out
of thirty-seven cases, all recovered.
Rapou says: In 1843 there was formed at Vienna, under the
direction of Fleischmann, a society exclusively for the study of
remedies. It was composed of about thirty members, many of
266
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
them young physicians visiting Gumpendorf. Each received an
unknown substance which he was to take in regular doses, not-
ing all the symptoms produced. The results were inserted in
the journal of the society.
Dr. Wm. Tod Helmuth thus writes in his Western Hom.
Observer, February, 1869: Little did we think while conversing
with Dr. Fleischmann in his consulting room at Vienna in the
latter part of September last, that a few weeks would number
him with the departed great men of the homoeopathic school.
His gentleness of manner and kindness, his great desire to un-
derstand the progress of Homoeopathy in America, his firm con-
viction in its final employment all over the known world only
tended to impress upon our mind the great interest that he felt
in that system of medicine for which he had labored through the
whole course of his active professional life. Among the services
rendered to Homeopathy by Dr. Fleischmann were the removal
of the restrictions laid upon the practice in 1819 by the Austrian
Empire, and in 1835 the thorough introduction of homoeopathic
principles into the hospital of the Sisters of Charity at Gumpen-
dorf. In 1836 he made his celebrated report upon the treatment
of cholera.
-
For thirty-three years Dr. Fleischmann has been the physician
to this hospital, and has not only endeared himself both to
patients, nurses and all connected with the charity, but has
made it a school where many of our most eminent men have
acquired knowledge of the principles and practice of Homœ-
opathy. He also was one of a commission appointed by the Im-
perial Government to inquire into the propriety of homoeopathic
physicians dispensing their own medicines, and was successful
in obtaining the desired privilege.
In 1860 he was decorated with the Order of Franz Joseph by
the Emperor of Austria; he was honored by the Pope in the
bestowal of the Order of Gregory, and received tokens of dis-
tinction from Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia.
He died on the 23d of November, of a gouty inflammation of
the lungs, at Vienna, in the 70th year of his age. In his death
the homoeopathic physicians of the world have sustained a severe
loss. (Esterreich. Zeits. f. hom., vol. 1, No. 1, p. 176. Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 2, pp. 25, 346; vol. 27, 175. Monthly Hom.
Rev., vol. 13, p. 60. West. Hom. Obs, vol. 6, Þ 52. World's
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
267
Con., vol. 2, p. 205. Kleinert., pp. 143,355.
77. p. 176. El Crit. Medico, vol. 10, p. 24
etc; vol. 2, p. 82; Hom. Med. Direct., y. Gt.
Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
Rapou, vol 1, pp. 256,
Britain, 1870, p. 313.)
FOLCH, FRANCISCO DE PAULA. In 1831 the Spanish
government sent a commission to Germany to study the cholera,
and Dr. Folch, professor at Barcelona, as one of the commission,
became acquainted with Homoeopathy, and on his return devoted
himself to the study of it and practiced it secretly. Some years
later he abandoned it to take it up again in his latter years.
Rapou writes: At the time of our first visit to Germany, about
the end of 1831, my father and myself attended a scientific con-
gress at Vienna, and met a Spanish physician who had been sent
by the government to study the cholera. Dr. Folch is a well-
read physician, of judicious spirit and character, easy and agree-
able, and we were intimate with him during our entire stay in
the Austrian capital. He loved to joke my father on his hom-
œopathic studies, and although he promised not to judge with-
out understanding, at our separation he was still imbued with
the prejudice against our system. In 1844 we learned that Dr.
Folch had been named Professor of Pathology in the medical
faculty of Barcelona, and that he had taken up the practice of
Homœopathy. My father wrote to him and asked some details
as to the actual state of Homœopathy in Spain. Rapou then
quotes Folch's account. (World's Con., vol. 2, þ, 322. Rapou,
vol. 1, pp. 176–80.)
FOLGER, ROBERT B. The first person in America who
followed the teachings of Dr. Gram was Dr. Robert B. Folger,
whom Gram first met at a Masonic meeting, May 25, 1826.
Dr.
Folger was born in Hudson, N. Y, in 1803, and commenced the
practice of medicine in 1824 in New York city. For some time
after he became acquainted with Gram he ridiculed the new law
of Homœopathy, but in August, 1826, Gram treated at his request
several cases successfully which Folger had deemed incurable.
Dr. Folger became interested and began to study the German
language under the tuition of Dr. Gram, reading with him the
"Organon" and "Materia Medica Pura." He commenced to prac-
tice Homœopathy in 1827, but not feeling confidence in his own.
knowledge of the system Dr. Gram always accompanied him
when he visited his patients. Dr. Folger, on account of ill health,
268
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
was obliged in January, 1828, to visit the South, Dr. Gram
bidding him good-bye at the vessel in which he sailed. During
this time he was Gram's only student and assistant. After Dr.
Folger went South his connection with Dr. Gram ceased, nor did
he practice medicine.
Dr. H. M. Smith says of him: Dr. Folger was born in Hud-
son, Columbia county, New York, in 1803. At the age of fifteen
he came to this city, and a year afterwards began the study of
medicine. He was subsequently a student of Dr. John V. B.
Rogers, the father of Dr. J. Kearney Rogers. He afterwards
entered the office of Dr. Alex. H. Stephens, and received his
license in 1824. In 1828 he visited the South for the benefit of
his health and afterwards took up a residence in North Carolina,
where he became engaged in mining. He returned to this city
in 1835, was for some time connected with a patent medicine,
subsequently retired from the practice of his profession and gave
his attention to mercantile pursuits. He is still living in
Brooklyn.
During the first week of his acquaintance with Dr. Folger, Dr.
Gram introduced the subject of Homœopathy and presented him
with his pamphlet. He afterwards lent him a manuscript article
on "The Pharmaco-Dynamic Properties of Drugs." He treated
many of Dr. Folger's chronic cases, and with such success, that,
convinced of the truth of his theories, Dr. Folger adopted his
mode of practice. Not understanding the German language, Dr.
Folger was entirely dependent on Dr. Gram until, under his tui-
tion, he acquired a sufficient knowledge to read the "Organon”
and “Materia Medica Pura." When Dr. Folger was in North
Carolina, Dr. Gram determined to go into practice with him, and
was to have joined him at Charlotte, in that State, in the fall of
1828; but reverses in business obliged Dr. Folger to move to new
mines in the interior of the State, and the project of Gram's
joining him was abandoned. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 444. N.
E. Med. Gaz., vol. 6, p. 93.)
FORGO, GEORGE. In Toeszeg, a village of the district
of Pesth, Forgó was born of poor parents in the year 1787; in
early youth he had already to look out for his own subsistence.
In the year 1805 he attended the University of Pesth, where he
found a benefactor in Prof. Szuecs. Soon after Forgó determined
1
OF HOMEOPATHY.
269
to study medicine, and to cover his expenses he undertook the
education of the son of Dr. Eckstein, the Professor of Surgery, in
whose house he was treated in the most friendly manner. On
the 5th of November, 1812, he became a Doctor of Medicine.
In the year 1814 he became an assistant of the Chair of Physi-
ology and in 1816 First Physician of the Comitat of Pesth, and
member of the Medical Faculty. In a short time Forgó, in con-
sequence of his excellent qualities, was one of the most sought
for physicians of Pesth. In the year 1820 Forgó became a
Homœopath-a step which at that time, and in his position of
first medical officer of the Comitat, could not be taken easily nor
without sacrifice, and which presupposed not only a heartfelt
conviction of the superior excellence of the doctrine of Hahne-
mann, but also a determined firmness of character.
The first impulse toward the study of Homœopathy was given
to Forgó by the army surgeon, Dr. Joseph Mueller, the Nestor
of Homoeopathy in Hungary who has done so much toward
spreading Homœopathy among the higher classes in Hungary.
Forgó made his acquaintance at a sick bed. Since Forgó, in his
first attempts was very successful, and, as he often stated, far
more successful than in later times, when he was much more
familiar with Homœopathy and the latter was much richer in
remedies, his confidence in the doctrines of Hahnemann neces-
sarily quickly increased. Particularly decisive for his convic-
tion was the case of an obstruction of many years' standing,
which was attended by such violent symptoms that the patient
at every stool had to be held by two persons. She assured him
that she would rather every time have gone through parturition.
Forgó gave her Nux vom. Next day the stool came without the
customary fearful pains, but the stool was diarrhoeic and at-
tended with some colic. Such stools she had three or four times
a day and was overjoyed. But Forgó was much vexed when he
heard that the army surgeon, Mueller, who knew the patient,
had said that the improvement would not last, because the stools
were not normal and the whole was only a primary effect of Nux
After sixteen days the stools, in fact, ceased, and the for-
mer torturing constipation returned. The patient then applied
to Dr. Mueller. He gave her Pulsatilla in the quadrillionth at-
tenuation, and this one dose so regulated the function of the
bowels that the lady from that day onward had one stool daily
vom.
270
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
without any attendant trouble. Forgó from this learned to be-
lieve in the efficacy of the quadrillionth attenuation, and also,
when his attention was called to it, that there are remedies which
can operate for sixteen days, as was the case with the Nux vom.
given by Forgó.
Although Forgó is hardly known by name to homoeopathic
physicians of other countries, he has nevertheless contributed
much to the spread and acknowledgement of the doctrines of
Hahnemann, not only by his conscientious practice of pure
Homœopathy, but also through his literary activity. In the year
1830 he assisted in translating the "Organon" into the Hungarian
tongue. At the time of the cholera epidemic he wrote in Hun-
garian about the homoeopathic treatment of this disease, and he
was a diligent colaborer in The Orvisitár, a Hungarian medical
journal. An ardent patriot, he was especially active in the ad-
vancement of the cultivation of his country's language and liter-
ature; it was owing to this that he was, in 1831, made a member
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Connected with the office of Physician of the Comitat are in-
spections of the drug stores. During a journey undertaken for
this purpose in the cold season Forgó had to spend the night in
a room which had not been heated for a long time. Scarcely
had he laid down in the cold bed when he was seized with vio-
lent pains in the bladder, so that he immediately jumped up
again and left his bed. From this moment began a torturing
disease of the bladder which tormented him for fully eight years.
Only a constitution as vigorous as his own could so long have
resisted so tormenting an ailment. At first he treated himself,
without any success. Then he entreated Hahnemann to help
him, and under his treatment he really improved so much that
he could not be kept back from attending to his official duties.
A relapse caused thereby aggravated anew all his sufferings, and
only death delivered him from his unspeakable tortures. Forgó
was a very unruly patient; he never observed homoeopathic diet-
ing, always accepted all invitations, smoked very strong tobacco,
and, in general, observed neither his own prescriptions nor those
of Hahnemann. A few days before his death he desired to visit
some mineral springs several days' journey from Pesth, but he
did not reach the place, but died on the way, in the house of his
friend, Baron Liptay, July 17, 1835. The post-mortem showed
OF HOMEOPATHY.
271
indurated and ulcerated places in the bladder, while its membranes
were thickened to such a degree that the capacity of the bladder
thus diminished would contain but a few spoonfuls of liquid.
If we had no other data concerning our deceased friend but
his last will, this would be sufficient to give us a clear concep-
tion of his noble disposition. He left considerable sums to
schools, to the work house, to hospitals, and to institutions for
the blind and for the deaf and dumb; more considerable legacies
he left to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, to the Hungarian
Theatre, and for the publication of the work of St. Horvath "Con-
cerning the Origin of the Hungarians." To the reading room
of the physicians of Pesth he willed his library and to the Na-
tional Museum his collection of natural curiosities.
In the year 1826 Forgó came to Ketskemet (where I was sta-
tioned at the time as army-surgeon) to inspect the drug store
there, and he complained that his homoeopathic medicines which
he carried with him on his journeys acted much more intensely,
and more frequently caused homoeopathic aggravations than the
medicines he kept at home. Without being able to explain this
peculiar experience he was not a little astonished to read two
years later in Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases" the strong
effect of the succussion of fluid medicines on the development of
their powers, according to the declaration of Hahnemann. This
fact is, on the one side, a strong proof of Forgó's acute powers of
observation, and on the other hand, of the actual existence of
homoeopathic aggravations, and, finally, of the potentizing of
our medicines through the treatment prescribed by Hahnemann.
For even if we should suppose the case that Forgó belonged to
those who are accustomed to see everywhere homoeopathic ag-
gravations, it remains very significant that he avers that he more
frequently observed these aggravations in his traveling-case, and
this at a time when our dilutions were viewed merely as attenu-
ations of the doses, and no one had an inkling of the effects of
trituration and succussion.
" "
Forgó had the same experience in his conversion to Homœo-
pathy as other physicians. Doctors and apothecaries became his
enemies. Especially inimical was the position of Apothecary
Preghard. Several years later this man fell sick, and the Allo-
paths who treated him advised him to make his last will. In
the fear of death he called in Forgó, and he-cured him. From
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
this time Preghard was a warm friend of Homœopathy and of
his deliverer, and he founded the well known homœopathic
pharmacy with the sign of "The great Christopher."
In this way we might enumerate many noble actions of Forgó
which did equal honor to his mind and his heart, and which were
of use to Homœopathy. In the whole of Pesth, beside his other
noble qualities, his strict honesty and love of truth were so well
known that the physicians recognized in the fact that Forgó re-
mained faithful to Homoeopathy even to his end, a powerful
argument for the possible truth of the doctrine of Hahnemann.
The tombstone of Forgó awakens in the homoeopathic physi-
cians of Hungary a sense of double joy and of double grief, as
they have lost in him a beloved patriot as well as a most able
colleague.
The name is among the list of contributors at the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. It is also on the Zeitung and Quin lists. He
was then practicing Homoeopathy at Pesth, Hungary. Rapou
says of him: Forgó, with the aid of Balogh and Professor Bugath,
dean of the Faculty of Medicine, translated into the Hungarian
the "Organon'" of Hahnemann. (Archiv f. d. hom. Heilk. vol.
18, pt. 3, p. 125; Rapou, vol. 1, p. 436.)
FRANCA, ANTONIO FERREIRA. Introduced Homo-
opathy into Bahia, Brazil, in 1818. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 407.)
FRANCO. In the Bibliotheque Homeopathique, for April,
1883, is the following: There is a new loss in our ranks. Franco,
Roman by birth, French by adoption, has succumbed to an
affection of the larynx which, last year, had necessitated trache-
otomy. He was an observer of sagacity, learned in the Materia
Medica, was very happy in the choice of his medicaments, and
his success greatly contributed to the advancement of Homœo-
pathy. (Bibl. Hom. vol. 14, p. 224.)
FREYTAG, EBERHARD. When in 1828 Drs. Detwiller and
Wesselhoeft became acquainted with Homœopathy, Dr. Freytag,
who was practicing near them, in Bethlehem, also became inter-
ested. He was then a man of sixty years, but he joined the
coterie of homoeopathic pioneers and soon became an earnest
worker with them. For the sake of mutual improvement
and to facilitate the new mode of practice, Drs. Detwiller,
Wesselhoeft, C. J. Becker and Freytag used to meet weekly at
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
273
Dr. Freytag's house in Bethlehem. Here they exchanged experi-
ences and prepared a repertory for their own use. When, in
1834, the Northampton County Homœopathic Society was organ-
ized, also at Bethlehem, Dr. Freytag was an original member.
His name appears on the Act of Incorporation of the Allen-
town Academy; he was one of the faculty of that first College
of Homœopathy. He died March 14, 1846. The Northampton
Society held a meeting of respect on March 30, when suitable
resolutions were adopted, and when the American Institute of
Homœopathy held its third meeting in Philadelphia, May 13,
1846, the Northampton Society of Homœopathic Physicians pre-
sented the following in recognition of the death of the vener-
able physician: At a meeting of the Northampton Society of
Homœopathic Physicians, held in Bethlehem, Pa., March the
30th, 1846, the following preamble and resolutions were unani-
mously adopted:
WHEREAS, In the dispensation of Divine Providence our vener-
able and highly esteemed colleague and president, Dr. Eberhard
Freytag, of this place has paid the debt of nature, and is now
gathered with his fathers, having died March 14, 1846, after an
earthly pilgrimage of fourscore and nearly two years, nearly two
thirds of which period he served this community as a faithful and
much beloved physician, the last fifteen years as a devoted and
exemplary Homoeopathist; therefore,
Resolved, That this Society most deeply feels the loss of our
highly esteemed president and venerable friend, and that we
sympathize affectionately with his bereaved widow, children and
relatives.
Resolved, That the lamented demise of Dr. E. Freytag be of-
ficially made known to the homoeopathic physicians about to as-
semble in convention in Philadelphia in May next.
Resolved, That our colleagues, Drs. H. Detwiller and John
Romig be a committee to extend the above communication as
directed. By order of the society.
Attest:
H. DETWILLER,
President pro tem.
L. F. RUIHEL, Secretary.
On motion of Dr McManus, of Baltimore, it was:
Resolved, That the members of the Institute have heard with
deep and profound regret of the death of Dr Eberhard Freytag,
274
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and unite with the Northampton Society, of which the deceased
was president, in their expression of sympathy with the relatives
of the deceased.
Resolved, That in the death of Dr. Eberhard Freytag Home-
opathia has lost a highly respected and able practitioner, and this
Institute a valuable member.
Resolved, That the communication of the Northampton Society
be placed upon the minutes of the Institute, and, that a copy of
the foregoing resolutions be transmitted to the Northampton
Society and to the relatives of the deceased.
This is the first death presented to the American Institute of
Homœopathy. Dr. Freytag had been one of the charter mem-
bers of the Institute. He was 82 years of age. (Trans. Am.
Inst. Hom., 1846. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 774.)
crédéric
GABALDA. On May 18, 1863, Dr. Gabalda, editor of The
Art Medical, died at Paris. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 67, p. 23.)
GACHASSIN. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy, at Toulouse.
GAGGI. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in Italy, and accord-
ing to Quin, was, in 1834. practicing in Ascoli.
GARNIER. Quin, in his list of 1834, gives Garnier as
practicing veterinary Homoeopathy at Thoissey, France.
GASPARY. Leipzig, April 17, 1863. Dr. Gaspary, of
Berlin, in Nizza, is dead.
The name appears both in the Zeitung and Quin lists. He
was then located (1832 34) at Mersewitz, in Prussia. Rapou
says that Gaspary began to practice Homœopathy in 1826, but
was not established in Berlin until later. He commenced, like
Hahnemann, with lower dilutions and mother tinctures, per-
sisting in that method at the same time that the chief of the
school had proclaimed the development of dynamized medicines.
Hahnemann was much vexed at the indifference on the part of
his disciples to his discovery, and wrote Gaspary a letter full of
reproaches. Later, Hahnemann modified his views and re-
pented of his rudeness to his friend. He died at Nice in March,
1863. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 66, p. 128. Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 3,
p. 576. Rapou, vol 2, pp. 245-48.
GASTIER. We are informed of the death of one of the
veterans of Homoeopathy. The venerable Dr. Gastier died March
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
275
↑
2, 1868, at the age of 78, in Clemantia. Quin gives the name
in the list of 1834, at which time he was practicing at Thaissey.
The Monthly Homœopathic Review says: M. le Dr. Gastier died
at his country seat in the Department of Ain, last February, in
the 79th year of his age. He contributed largely and during a
long period of years to the progress of Homœopathy in France,
in which country he was one of our earliest converts.
He was
the first homoeopathic physician who received and retained a
hospital appointment. In 1832 he was appointed by the
directors to the medical charge of the hospital at Thoissey.
Writing of his appointment subsequently (Bibl. Hom. de Geneve.,
T. 2) he says: "My chief end was to cultivate Homoeopathy, and
at the hospital to make it my only rule of practice." Thirteen
years afterwards a physician of the town of Macon stated in a
local journal, that the directors had interdicted M. Gastier from
practicing Homoeopathy in their establishment, The directors.
at once wrote a letter to the journal indignantly denying the
truth of the allegation, and said that: "Since Dr. Gastier had
taken office the number of deaths as compared with the admis-
sions had been diminished; that the expenses of the pharmacy
department had been almost nil; and that the management had
become more simple and easy." M. Gastier was at one time one
of the editors of the Bibliothique Homeopathique de Geneve. He
contributed frequently to the various homœopathic periodicals of
France, his last paper entitled: Glose aux divers points," ap-
pearing in the Biblio. Hom. de Paris, a few days before his death.
"
Dr. Gastier left the hospital in 1848, being appointed deputy
to the National Assembly. (Bull. Soc. Med. Hom. de France,
April, 1868. La Homœopathia, vol. 3, p. 121. Bibl. Hom., vol.
1, p. 112. Mon. Hom. Rev., vol. 12, p. 383. World's Con., vol 2,
Þ. 155.)
GAUWERKY, FRIEDRICH. Every anniversary after 1829
was distinguished by some mark of appreciation on the part of
the disciples and friends of Hahnemann. On August 10, 1833,
he received a cup with this inscription: "To Dr. Samuel Hahne-
mann, at Coethen, a gift of friendship from his devoted admirer,
Dr. Friedrich Gauwerky, of Soest, in Westphalia, August 10,
1833."
GEISLER. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
276
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1829, at which time he practiced at Dantzig, in West Prussia.
His name appears on the Zeitung and Quin lists as medical
councilor in Dantzig.
GEIST. Was one of the pioneers of Homoeopathy in Saxe
Weimar. The Zeitung list of 1832 mentions the name, as does
Quin in 1834.
GENTZKE. Was a practitioner of Homœopathy in Parchim,
Mecklinburg, about 1833. When Lux, in 1833, published his
book on Isopathy, Gentzke was one of the physicians who
opposed it. And when Dr. Herrmann proposed, in 1848, to
cure disease by giving a preparation of the same organ of an
animal as the organ affected, Gentzke again opposed the fallacy.
He was well acquainted with the veterinary art, and as the
Isopathists depended upon observations on cattle, his opinion
was of weight. He says: The flesh of rabid animals may be
eaten with impunity, that the virus of glanders may be intro-
duced into the mouth and stomach of animals without producing
any disease. Therefore contagious matters will be destroyed by
long trituration and solution in alcohol. But he believed in
anthracine, but doubted the recorded cures.
He related many
cases where he failed to obtain any action from freshly prepared
anthracine. He thought contagia to be animated organisms,
which can only be developed under certain conditions, and must
be destroyed by the mode of preparation used for medicines.
Psorine found no favor with him. He said that the poison of
hydrophobia had no effect when introduced into the mouth or
stomach. (World's Hom. Con., vol. 2, p. 34. Kleinert, pp. 223,
242, 275. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 665. Dudgeon's Lectures.)
GERBER, A. C. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829, at which date he was practicing in Delitsch, in
Prussian Saxony. His name appears both on the Zeitung list of
1832, and that of Quin in 1834.
GERSTEL, ADOLPHUS. The American Institute Trans-
actions for 1891 contains the following: Dr. Gerstel was elected
an honorary member of the Institute at Philadelphia in 1876.
He was contemporary with Hering, and was one of the earliest
disciples of Hahnemann, and treated at Prague, the Asiatic
cholera in 1831, homœopathically. He was associated with the
early homoeopathists of Austria, and suffered with them in the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
277
persecutions by the government. He took an active part in the
renowned Austrian Provers' Union, and contributed to the litera-
ture of our school in many ways. Several reports were pre-
sented from him to the World's Homeopathic Convention in
1876. He died in August last, but the circumstances attending
the event have not been communicated.
K
His name appears on the Zeitung list of 1832, at which time
he was practicing Homoeopathy at Brünn. Quin also mentions
him in the Directory of 1834. The following interesting account
by Dr. Gerstel of the early days of the cholera appeared in the
Zeitschrift f. hom. Klinik and was translated into the British
Journal for April, 1855: The cholera, this destroying angel of
humanity, numbering thousands among its victims, appears
henceforth to become the angel of salvation, for it is owing to its
prevalence that Homœopathy has been brought into estimation,
has obtained admission into circles, and been listened to by those
to whom it had hitherto seemed to be an illegitimate object for
inquiry.
The homœopathic mode of treatment of Dr. Hahnemann was
prohibited in Austria by a decree of the Chancellor's Court of
the 2d of October, 1819. Notwithstanding this, the cholera was
successfully treated in 1831 by Austrian Homœopathists in
Galicia, Moravia, Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. I was per-
mitted to have a large proportion of patients under my care, and
thus, in the space of less than three months, treated near 300
cases of cholera in different villages, in which it had shown itself
of a most inveterate character. The extremely fortunate results
obtained, and which were for the most part officially certified,
only showed 32 deaths (Archiv xi, 2, 121; 3, 58; xii, 1, 145—
Quin. Du. Traitement Homœop. du Cholera, Paris, 1832, p. 32), and
had for effect that notwithstanding the interdiction of the com-
mission by the chief magistrate of Prague, the faculty of medi-
cine had to discuss the question whether my petition, that a
portion of the hospital should be allotted for cases of cholera,
should be granted. A breach of etiquette which I committed on
that occasion-I neglected to pay a visit at the right time to a
person of importance-may possibly have contributed to my
petition being unattended with any result. A proposal was
made to me to practice under the control of a district superin-
tendent, Dr. Nushard, within a certain district, in order to
278
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
establish proofs of the success of the homœopathic treatment—
an offer which I declined. Another consequence of these re-
sults obtained by me was that the Bavarian ministry, having
received information from private sources of my success, sent
Dr. Roth from Munich to Austria to collect information respect-
ing the homoeopathic treatment of cholera, and embody it in a
report.―(Roth. Die homöopath. Heilkunst in ihrer Anwendung
gegen die Cholera, Leipzig, 1833.)
The cholera epidemic of 1836 was of still greater benefit to
Homœopathy. It raged with great violence in Vienna. The
prohibition of 1819 still hung over us Austrians, like the sword
of Damocles, although, at least in the chief cities, it was not
brought into practical operation. As to allopathic treatment, the
practitioners were, as formerly, still groping in the dark. The
most disproportionately favorable results obtained by Dr. Fleisch-
mann in the hospital of the Grey Sisters of Gumpendorf in
Vienna excited such great attention, that, as Fleischmann him-
self relates (Hyg. 8, 316), he was commissioned to lay before the
court a report upon the cholera, and the best mode of treatment
in accordance with his experience. The immediate result ob-
tained was the removal of the prohibition to practice Homo-
opathy in Austria in February, 1837. The liberty to dispense
the dilutions and triturations was subsequently accorded.
It is well known what progress the new system of medicine
has since made, especially the physiological school, which may
be said to have originated in Vienna. The increasing simplicity
of allopathic treatment, when considered in reference, on the
one hand to a prominent feature, expectant medicine, or on the
other to the mania for specific remedies. is really attributable,
not so much to principles of physiological pathology, but much
more to the facts as shown by homoeopathic treatment, which
can no longer be either denied or ignored. My experience has
led me to believe that the operation of these circumstances has
caused in many places, and especially in Vienna, a closer ap-
proximation between well-informed Allopaths and rational Ho-
mœopaths.
I was delighted to find such a feeling existing in Brünn, where
I was residing till the year 1842. Science and the good cause,
however, demand something more. It cannot be doubted that,
now having attained the present position, stirring energy com-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
279
bined with honest openness, discretion and firmness, with an im-
partial and unprejudiced critical estimation of the performances
of each school, must lead to a further and growing recognition
of homœopathic principles on the part of the old school.
Impressed with this conviction, the cholera again afforded me
a favorable opportunity of bringing Homoeopathy one step nearer
to this end.
In the College of Physicians of this place there was a very
praiseworthy regulation; that, after the termination of the usual
business, any person might read a medical or scientific paper of
which he had previously given notice, on which occasion frequent
discussions ensued.
Q
At the commencement of the present cholera epidemic, a reso-
lution was adopted, on the 12th of October, that during the
present epidemic, a weekly meeting should be held, without in-
vitation, at which an unrestricted discussion should be allowed,
with a mutual interchange of observations; at the same time that
a weekly medical journal should be published, in the name of
the college, containing the communications of both parties on
the nature and treatment of the epidemic.
It would not be uninteresting to make here an abstract of the
most important modes of treatment adopted; to do so, however,
would not correspond with the object of this paper, even if space
allowed, I therefore limit myself to the following:
One of the physicians, a Dr. Horst, announced that he had
reason to believe cholera to be a catarrh of the kidneys, and that
his treatment, based upon that hypothesis, had been crowned
with great success; it was therefore his intention to read a paper
before the College of Physicians. At the meeting on the 7th of
November, he endeavored, by demonstrating the physiology of
the kidneys, with the aid of diagrams, to render his hypothesis
intelligible, and then proceeded to describe his treatment as fol-
lows: cataplasma emolientia to the region of the kidneys; an
infus. rad. Ipec. with flor. Chamom. (of the former 4 grains, of
the latter one grain in 4 ounces of liquid; does not this seem to
be an inclination towards Homœopathy with an effort toward
concealment? G.); then tr. Veratri albi, gtt. sex, in a glass of
water, a tablespoonful every half hour, with the observation, that
by the employment of this remedy he has seen very dangerous
cases of vomiting recover.
280
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Before these communications were made I had determined to
make use of these meetings and introduce the subject of Homo-
opathy, the more so as I was well aware that it would be well
received by a large portion of the younger colleagues. Still I was
desirous for some time to follow in the wake of these transactions.
Although I had many cases of choleraic disease under treatment
during the epidemic, I had not had any of real cholera, still I
could not allow this opportunity to pass of fulfilling my inten-
tion to speak earnestly on the subject of the homoeopathic treat-
ment of this disease at the next meeting. I must, however, ex-
press my thanks to our present dean, Counsellor Dr. Knolz,
whom I had previously informed of my intention, who, besides
being very polite, requested I would furnish him with a paper
for the next number of the journal.
I therefore spoke at the meeting of the 14th of November, ob-
serving that it was the object of these meetings to exchange
observations on the treatment of cholera, on which point there
seemed to be now some degree of approximation, as well as to
receive contributions for future discussion. I therefore thought
it my duty to explain its homoeopathic treatment, which I had
already adopted in 1831, and which, in fact, I use exclusively in
all other forms of disease. An unprejudiced auditory, really
anxious on the subject, would impartially weigh the observations
I had to make; but still, to avoid any misconceptions, I must
beg previously to remark, that it is of frequent occurrence to
consider Homoeopathy nothing more than a difference of dose,
whereas the dose is no essential constituent of homoeopathic
treatment, the most essential principle being the proper selection
of the remedy according to the law of similarity, as shown by
the character of the medicine in its physiological and toxico-
logical provings. In speaking further of specific remedies, I do
not wish the term to be applied in its usual acceptation, that
there is any specific remedy for cholera without due considera-
tion of the different stages, but that there are specifics for the
different stages of cholera. I observed, moreover, that in homœo-
pathic therapeutics one remedy is used alone, without any other
as an adjunct, whether internally or externally, excepting in
those instances in which two remedies are clearly indicated,
when they are given alternatively. With regard to the observa-
tions I had made respecting the dose, they were to be considered
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
281
as general, and not referring to the remedies I was about to
name, but I should be ready at the conclusion of my paper, if
desired, to give any further explanation.
After this introduction I named the following remedies in the
order I considered them indicated in cholera: Camphor, Phos-
phorus, Acid. phosph., Ipecac, Veratrum, Cuprum, Secale, Arsenic,
Carb. veg., Conium, Nicotiana (and Nicotin), and Acid. hydro-
cyanicum.
I then proceeded to describe cholera and its different stages,
from the precursory symptoms and their varieties to the stage of
collapse, noticing, as I went on, the characteristic indications.
for the employment of the corresponding remedies. To repeat
all that was said on this subject is not the object of this paper,
and would present nothing new to the readers of this journal.
At the conclusion of my paper, which was listened to with the
greatest attention and which met with much approbation, as I was
informed by several Allopathists, I was questioned by one of the
members as to the dose, and with the following intimation: he
must confess he now heard of the remedies, the employment of
which in cholera had been entirely unknown to him, for ex-
ample, Cuprum acet., Nicotin, etc.; but surely it cannot be in-
different as to what doses of these remedies are given. I here
mentioned the doses of each of the above named medicines, as I
was in the habit of dispensing them, usually, with the exception
of Camphor, from the 1st to the 6th decimal dilution. I do not
intend to call in question the action of the higher dilutions, but
only remark that the above dilutions were those which I used
exclusively in 1831.
·
No further observation was passed. I do not, however, flatter
myself that much was done, on this occasion, in favor of Hom-
œopathy, and am resolved that the subject shall not be forgotten.
The scanty seed has already taken root, and will, with proper
culture, still bear some fruit; on my part at least every effort
shall be made to secure success.
That the seed had taken root was shown by the fact that on
the 5th of December the subject of Homœopathy was again re-
ferred to. A colleague who had only been in Vienna a few
weeks, was of the opinion that it would be very interesting if
an impartial comparison of the two methods of treatment could
be made. He was an Eclectic and also practiced Homœopathy,
282
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and thought that in ordinary cases it was more beneficial, but
that in severe cases, especially in aged people, in children and
cachectic subjects, the allopathic treatment was much to be pre-
ferred. He was not prepared to maintain that the success ob-
tained in the cases mentioned was strictly attributable to the
homoeopathic remedies, for Skoda remarks, that even the evacua-
tions may prove to be the crisis of the disorder; (Skoda makes
no such observation. G.); therefore the result would be so much
the more favorable, the more simply the cholera is treated.
Another colleague sitting near to me made this remark nearly
audible to all; "That is a contradictio in thesi." Dr. Melicher,
(brother of our late and much lamented Berlin colleague) made
a reply. He confirmed, from his own experience, what had been
stated by me as to the homoeopathic treatment of cholera, still
he would not exclusively speak in favor of Homœopathy; it was
the duty of every physician to make himself acquainted with
every method of treatment,-Allopathy, Homœopathy, Hydro-
pathy, Gymnastics and Electricity, etc. to be able to employ
either the one or the other, but always with the utmost con-
sideration. In aged persons and cachectic subjects, any remedy
would scarcely be of any service; he had obtained great success
in the homoeopathic treatment of cholera in children, and men-
tioned a family in which four children were violently attacked
with cholera, but who were cured by Homoeopathy. Of Vera-
trum album, which he considered had an especial specific rela-
tion to cholera, he remarked that Hippocrates had used it in a
very severe case of cholera, but that the medicine had since been
entirely forgotten; great merit was to be attributed to Hahne-
mann for again bringing it into notice. He promised in a future
paper to detail in full his experience of the treatment of cholera.
An assistant physician of the general hospital stated that in
reference to the treatment, he considered Camphor as especially
valuable, for he had given a strong solution of it mixed with
Acetic ether (as he informed me only on account of its agreeable
taste) in drop doses, and then mentioned some surprising cases
of cholera spasmodica, which without diarrhoea would have passed
into collapse. I expressed my determined opposition to these
mixtures, and repeatedly drew attention to the fact, that the
benefit was solely owing to Camphor: that it was only of use in
some forms of the disease, and that it was not by any means the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
283
sole cholera medicine. I then remarked that the object of my
communication was not to secure a preference for my mode of
treatment, but I wished it rather to be considered as a contribu-
tion to cholera therapeutics. Criticism and the decision upon
this subject may be put off to another time. We are, however,
desirous of pursuing sine ira et studio our way still further, and
to push forward the good cause with vigor and honor. (Brit.
Jour. Hom., 13, 328. Am. Inst. Trans., 1891. Zeit. Hom.
Klinik.. 1855.)
GIDELA, MANUEL. Was an early homoeopathic physician
in Granada, Spain. He was prosecuted for practicing Homo-
opathy and was acquitted by the tribunal; a short time after-
wards, Dr. Jose Lopez, one of the prosecutors of Gidela became
insane, and having recovered under the care of the homœopathic
physician, Dr. Felipe Gil, of Zubia, he was himself converted to
Homœopathy. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 324. Rapou, vol. 1,
p. 178.)
GIL, FELIPE. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Zubia. He was the means of curing the allopathic doctor, Jose
Lopez, of insanity and converting him to Homœopathy.
(World's Con., vol. 2, p. 324. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.)
GILLET. Was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy, at
Marseilles, France.
GIRTANNER. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832, at
which time he was practicing in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Quin,
in 1834, locates him at the same place. Kleinert also mentions
him.
GLASOR. The name appears in the Zeitung list of 1832, as
medical inspector in the Grand Duchy of Hesse Darnıstadt; he
lived at Grünberg. Quin also gives his name. Rapou says:
Among the members of the Thuringian Society was Glasor, of
Grünberg, who had made special researches upon antipsoric.
treatment; he prepared an article on the "Heredity of Psora."
Glasor, in 1833, published a "Nosological Repertory." In the
Zeitung for 1837 appears the following:
Glasor. On the 17th of February, 1837, died at Coesfeld,
in Westphalia, Dr. Glasor, physician in ordinary to Prince Salm-
Horstmar, known to the homoeopathic world by his short
284
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
repertory. He died of a chronic disease of the glands and of the
whole of the lymphatic system; he had disregarded this disease
until it had reached a height where no medical art could be of
any further avail.
He was born in the year 1789, in Luditz, in Bohemia, and
equipped with a rich treasure of preparatory knowledge, be at-
tended in the year 1813, the University of Giessen, where he
received his doctor's diploma in the year 1816. To further
develop himself in his profession, he immediately afterwards
traveled to Munich and Vienna, where he visited the various
medical institutions and formed valuable acquaintances. Imme-
diately after his return he was appointed as district physician in
Grünberg, in the Grand Duchy of Hessia, which office he filled
to the general complete satisfaction for eighteen years, and where
he distinguished himself as well by his indefatigable industry,
as by the universality of his scientific attainments.
A death in his family and the cure of another member of the
same through Homœopathy in the year 1824, was the reason for
his entering with zeal on the study of this science, and of his
gradually so perfecting himself, that he doubtless was one of the
most efficient among the adherents of the new school. His very
extensive practice gave him manifold opportunities of proving
the excellence of the new method of healing and to keep up his
zeal in its study. It was therefore more for his recreation, than
to acquire additional knowledge in his profession, that in the
year 1827 he spent about two months in Paris and in the year
1832, he spent four weeks in London, although he did his
utmost to become well acquainted with the medical institutions
of these two capitals.
In November, 1834, he accepted the position offered him of
physician in ordinary to Prince of Salm-Horstmar, after having
proved before a College of the Royal Prussian Medical Examiners
in Coblenz his qualification, and accordingly received his license
for practicing in the Prussian States. Also, here he in a short
time acquired the especial favor of the generous and philan-
thropic princely family, but also the love and gratitude of
numerous sufferers, to whom he became a deliverer, comforter
and friend. His death was, therefore, very much lamented, and
many a tear has fallen to his memory. "Sit illi terra levis.”
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 11, p. 200.)
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
285
GLUCKER. Was located at Vienna at the same period as
Marenzeller. (Trans. World's Con., 1876, vol. 2, p. 204.)
GOSSNER. In 1819 he was practicing Homœopathy in
Oberhollabrun, in Lower Austria. (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 199.)
GOTTSCHALCH. According to the Quin list of 1834, he
was practicing in Leipzig at that date.
GOULLON, HEINRICH. Was a contributor to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829. His name is on the Quin list of 1834.
He was one of the most distinguished of the early Homœopa-
thists. The British Journal of July 2d, 1883, states that Dr.
Goullon, Sr., of Weimar, who has just died at upwards of eighty
years of age, was well known to all the homoeopathic world by
his numerous writings, polemical and scientific, many of which
are to be found in our early volumes. He has left a son who is
even a more voluminous writer and an equally hard worker.
The Revue Hom. Belge says: We announce with regret the
death of Dr. Goullon, pere, at Weimar. All to whom the cause
of Homœopathy is dear should join to honor his memory. The
following is from a non-medical journal, the Weimarische Zeitung,
May 16, 1883: Last night died at the age of 80 years, one of our
most eminent citizens, Dr. Goullon, member of the Privy Medi-
cal Council. Dr. Goullon was a son of Weimar. After finishing
his studies he entered, in 1824, into the service of the city.
The many obligations attendant on his medical duties he ful-
filled with zeal and integrity. On April 27, 1874, his fiftieth
doctor jubilee was celebrated; he was decorated with the Kom-
thur Kreizer of the second class. But the great merit of his
fruitful life lies in his services as a physician and a man of
science.
Dr. Goullon, of Weimar, whose writings show him to belong
more to the so-called pure Hahnemannists than to the specific
school, writes as follows concerning the high-potency practice:
Isopathy, I look upon as the psora of Homœopathy, and the
high potency practice as its colliquative stage. Both remind me
of the tares and the wheat; the latter on account of the mystery
in which it is enveloped, which does incalculable mischief to any
good thing. It is rather too much to expect us to experiment
with substances we know nothing about; if this be not the surest
way to undermine Homœopathy, I don't know what is. I have
286
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
never seen the slightest effect from a high potency; but I would
never think, on that account, of denying the cures of others.
But were they really high potencies, whose figures 200 up to
1000 [he might have said up to 60,000] were proportioned to our
30th dilution, or what were the preparations employed? Before
we can talk of such cases in science, we must be able to specify
exactly what the remedies were with which they were effected;
otherwise we depart from simple pure Homoeopathy, and get en-
tangled in an obscure labyrinth, which is doubtless what would
be very agreeable to many. (Zeitsch. f. hom. Klin. vol. 2, p. 1.)
Puhlmann says (1876): It should be mentioned that the above-
named author, Dr. H. Goullon, Sr., is one of the few who have
not been removed from government service on account of becom-
ing Homœopathists. Since 1834 he has been Physicus (district
physician), and since 1866 has been president of the Medical
Commission in the Grand Duchy of Weimar, and in these posi-
tions has had plenty of opportunity to assist the supporters of
Homœopathy. In 1833, October 1st, he founded the "Homœo-
pathic Society in Thueringen."
DR. H. GOULlon's Jubilee, Prague.—According to letters
from Weimar, the Privy Medical Counselor, Dr. Goullon cele-
brated his 50 years' jubilee as doctor quite privately in the circle
of his immediate family, because the honored celebrant wished
to avoid all show and ostentation. He received greeting from the
Homœopathic Central Union, of Germany, in the form of an ad-
dress in classic Latin, which had been ordered engrossed calli-
graphically by its directory; also received a congratulation from
the Free Union for Homœopathy in Leipzig, which for a num-
ber of years already has the celebrant enrolled among their
honorary members; this address was in a heartfelt and flowing
style. The Allgemeine homoopathishe Zeitung also sent him a
telegram which caused him exceeding pleasure," and was of
the following import:
("
"To the contemporary of Hahnemann, the highly esteemed
veteran, the indefatigable student of science, the doughty
champion of truth and right, a most hearty threefold, 'All hail!'
May the highly esteemed celebrant long continue in his practical
usefulness and in his services to Homœopathy."
The address of the Central Union was the following:
Viro amplissimo collega honoratissimo, domino diguissimo et cele-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
287
berrimo Henrico Goullon Medicinæ et Chirurgia Doctori, Nec non
Consilus Secretioribus Magni Ducis Saxonial, Vimarensium atque
Isenacensium principis, adjecto discipulo illustrissimo Samuelis
Hahnemanni, de propagandis angendisque disciplinis magni
Magistri optime merito, humanita te et scientiarum amore terque
conspicuo, die XXIV Decembris MDCCCLXXII Festum Semisae-
culare adeptæ laurea medica celebranti, omnia bona, fausta, felicia
fortunataque adprecans sinceri cultu tesseram vovet.
Societas Homeopathica Germania,
FRANCISCUS FISCHER,
Medicine Doctor H. T. Præses.
CROLUS HEINIGKE,
Medicine Doctor H. T. Secretarius.
Lipsia Mense Decembris anni MDCCCLXXII.
TRANSLATION.
To the distinguished man, the most honored colleague, the
most worthy gentleman, and the most celebrated doctor of medi-
cine and surgery, Henry Goullon, Privy Counselor of the Grand
Duke of Saxony and Prince of Weimar and Eisenach, also, the
most illustrious disciple of Samuel Hahnemann, who has greatly
distinguished himself in propagating and developing the disci-
pline of the great Master, and is thrice conspicuous for his learn-
ing and love of science, and on the 24th of December, 1872, is
celebrating the semi-centennial of his receiving the medical
laurel, the undersigned wishes every good; happiness, felicity
and good fortune, and devotes this token of its sincere esteem.
The Homœopathic Society of Germany,
FRANCIS FISCHER, M. D.,
President at the time.
CHARLES HEINIGKE, M. D.,
Secretary at the time.
Leipzig, December, 1872.
The congratulatory address of the "Free Union for Homo-
opathy" in Leipzig, was as follows:-
VERY HONORED COLLEAGUE: The Free Union for Homœ-
opathy in Leipzig who, with pride and joy have counted you
for many years one of their honorary members, cannot allow the
day of your semi-centennial jubilee to pass without offering you
their most heartfelt congratulations.
Your name is most intimately connected with the history of
288
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Homœopathy. With true manly courage, after becoming con-
vinced of the truth of the new curative method, you acknowl-
edged the same frankly and openly at a time when Homœopathy
was yet small and despised, and when persecution and obloquy
was the lot of those professing it. In your long life you have
not only contributed to gain the recognition and the esteem of
the world for Homœopathy by your brilliant successes in practice,
but you have also by your labors, which will ever continue to
be an ornament of our literature, advanced its internal develop-
ment with faithfulness and industry.
It was also chiefly through your efforts that Homoeopathy
gained in your native home for the first time in Germany, the
right of practice without any official obstruction.
Your able services long ago secured you external acknowledge-
ment at the hand of our illustrious princely house, which called
you to fill the highest medical office in your land.
But you may
also rest assured that you have raised for yourself in the hearts
of your more intimate colleagues an imperishable monument of
love and esteem, and that the younger generation looks up to
you as a shining model.
May it be granted you in well-deserved tranquility to enjoy a
long and serene evening of life. May you be long preserved in
untroubled health, and vigor of mind to your family and to
Homœopathy.
With this sincere wish, please to receive the assurance of our
perfect esteem.
Der Freie Verein für Homœopathie,
DR. CL. MUELLER, President.
Leipzig, December 23d, 1872.
DR. A. LORBACHER, Secretary.
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 41, p. 319.
World's Con., vol. 2, p. 45.
Allg. hom. Zeit., vol, 86, p. 16. Rev. Hom. Belge., vol. 10, p. 93.
Bibl. Hom., vol. 14, p. 320. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 528, etc.)
GRAM, HANS BURCH. The pioneer of Homoeopathy in
America. He was a son of Hans Gram, whose father was a
wealthy sea captain of Copenhagen. Mr. Gram (father of the
doctor) when a young man was private secretary to the Governor
of the Danish Island of Santa Cruz. While traveling in the
United States, in 1782 or 1783, he became interested in the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
289
daughter of the proprietor of a hotel in Boston where he was
staying. The lady's name was Miss Burdick. He married her,
much to the displeasure of his father, who immediatly disin-
herited him, but repented on his death-bed and left him the bulk
of his fortune. Mr. Gram resigned his position as secretary
and settled in Boston, where he passed his life. The records are
very meagre; it is not known just when in 1786 his eldest son,
Hans Burch, was born, nor is it known where Mr. Gram lived
at that time. Later on he was known to have lived on Cambridge
street, and was an organist by profession. Afterwards he lived
on Common street, where he died in 1803. His death occurred
soon after he had learned of the death of his father and the fact
that he had left him his inheritance; he had made his plans to
sail for Copenhagen, but the night before he was to sail he was
taken suddenly ill and died in a few hours. His widow survived
him but two years, and Hans Burch, at the age of eighteen, went
to Copenhagen to secure the large property which had been left
to his father. He did not obtain it all, but enough to give him-
self a superior education. Dr. Gray says, in the Homœopathic
Examiner, that he arrived in Copenhagen in 1808, but Dr. H.
M. Smith gives an earlier date. It is likely that he reached
Denmark about 1806-7. He found relatives, who favored him.
Prof. Fenger, physician in ordinary to the King, was his uncle
and through his favor young Gram received every advantage.
His friends placed him in the Royal Medical and Surgical Insti-
tution of the Danish kingdom. Dr. Fenger gave him every ad-
vantage of the schools and hospitals of northern Europe. Within
a year after his arrival in Copenhagen Gram received the flatter-
ing appointment of assistant surgeon in a large military hospital
from the King. Previous to his admission into the Academy of
Surgery he had to sustain an examination in Latin and Greek
and Natural Philosophy, and this hospital appointment was also
preceded by a rigorous examination in anatomy and minor
He was officially connected with this hospital during
the last seven years of the Napoleonic wars, residing in the edi-
fice much of the time as assistant in surgery. In 1814 Gram
resigned his place in the military hospital, having acquired the
rank of surgeon and won the highest grade of merit in the Royal
Academy of Surgery, with the degree of C. M. L., the highest
of three degrees. He now devoted himself to general practice
-
-
290
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in the city of Copenhagen, and he was so successful that at the
age of forty he had acquired a competence for his own future
support and to enable him to render assistance to the younger
members of his family, all of whom had remained in the United
States. Gram had tested the method of Hahnemann during the
years 1823 and 1824, fully and most cautiously, as well on his
own person, with reference to the verity of the pharmaco-
dynamics, as in his extensive practice with reference to the truth
of the maxim of Homœopathy, "Similia similibus curentur.
He did not, however, feel settled; his family was in America;
besides he no doubt wished to introduce this new method of heal-
ing into the land of his birth. He returned to America in 1825,
landing during the early spring of 1825 in New York city. He
came home a most thorough general and medical scholar, having
rendered himself fit for the society, and became a much loved
friend of the most learned and eminent men of the Athens of
Europe. Callisen, Bang, Muenter, Schumacker, Oersted and
Fenger were his daily associates and warm personal friends. In
New York he resided with his brother, Neils B. Gram, at 431
Broome street. It was not long after his arrival before he lost
his fortune by endorsing notes for his brother, and was compelled
to return to the practice of his profession. He opened an office
in New York, but it was several years before he became much
known to his professional brethren. Gray, in his sketch in the
Homœopathic Examiner, says of him: He was too modest by far
in his intercourse with his fellow men. He was not diffident nor
timid, for no surgeon knew better how to decide when or how
any operation of the art should be performed, and very few,
indeed, could operate with his skill and adroitness; but in con-
versing with a fellow practitioner he very much preferred hear-
ing the sentiments and opinions of others to delivering his own.
He made it a rule never to express his opinions on scientific
matters till they were sought for in detail. Yet was Gram apt
and willing to converse and to teach. With a little of our
American brusquerie he would have acquired within a year after
his arrival all the reputation and respect with which he died. In
private life no man was more engaging, and no one could be
more beloved than he was. Dr. Gram was an adherent of Hahne-
mann's method when he came to this country, and he was the
first pioneer of the method for America.
>
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
291
It is not known to the writer of this notice how long he had
been a Homœopathist in Copenhagen, but it is quite probable
that it was some ten or twelve years, for he claimed to have been
among the earliest of the European confessors.
Gram had not been long in New York before he published a
translation of an essay of Hahnemann entitled, Geist der
Homöopathischen Heillehre, or Spirit of the Homoeopathic
Healing Law." This he dedicated to Professor and President of
the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and Professor
of Theory and Practice in that institution, David Hosack, an
eminent physician of New York. He says in his dedication:
The doctrines of Homœopathia are not in unison with those gen-
erally accepted and promulgated by medical men. The subject
is a new one tending not only to reformation in theoretical and
practical medicine, but threatening to invalidate many of the
doctrines, which at present, are admitted as correct, and propa-
gated as indispensably necessary in the study and practice of
medicine. This new doctrine is already considerably advanced
in Europe, and the number of its adherents is daily increasing.
An examination of its principles will show that it is not to be
condemned but that it deserves serious consideration, especially
so as its propagators contend that not only theory and reasoning
but experience establishes its truth. This pamphlet was written
for the profession and was distributed gratuitously, especially to
the officers of the medical schools. Unfortunately, Gram's long
disuse of the English language, comprising over twenty years of
his residence in Denmark, gave his pamphlet so quaint a con-
struction and style as to render it a very difficult task to read it
intelligently. Gray expresses a doubt as to whether any one of
the gentlemen to whom it was sent ever did read it, and says
that Dr. Hosack, with whom he conversed on the subject of
Homœopathy two years later, had not done so. It excited ridi-
cule also in the minds of some of the profession. Gram was
greatly disappointed that the truth he was so enthusiastic about
met with so little welcome, and this pamphlet of only twenty-
four pages was the only thing he ever published. Dr. H. M.
Smith says that Dr. Metcalf was not able to obtain a copy; that
Dr. Hering had never seen a copy, and even doubted the exist-
ence of the pamphlet. But that he (Dr. Smith) had obtained a
292
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
copy through the kindness of Mrs. Wilsey, who gave him the
copy of Dr. F. L. Wilsey, one of Gram's colleagues.
But Dr. Gram was a very earnest Royal Arch Mason, and
through this channel soon after his arrival, formed several valu-
able friendships with influential people. He met Dr. Robert B.
Folger at a Masonic lodge on May 25, 1826. It is said that he
was an officer of the Jerusalem Chapter No. 8, and took part in
the exaltation of Dr. Folger at an extra meeting held for that
purpose. A very close friendship was formed between these
men, and twice they nearly became partners. Dr. Gram loaned
to Folger a manuscript article on the "Pharmacodynamic Prop-
erties of Drugs," which Dr. Folger afterwards lost. It is not
likely to be in existence. Dr. Folger introduced Gram, in Sep-
tember, 1826, to a Mr. Ferdinand L. Wilsey, who was a promi-
nent Mason and master of a lodge, in order that Gram might
instruct Wilsey in certain important Masonic points. Mr. Wil-
sey at that time was a merchant, a patient of Dr. John F. Gray.
Dr. Gram frequently visited Mr. Wilsey's place of business, and
they soon became intimate. Dr. Gray says of this: One of my
patients, Mr. F. L. Wilsey, a merchant, who afterwards studied
medicine, introduced me to Dr. Gram in 1827. I had treated
Mr. Wilsey for an inveterate dyspepsia a long time, and with
such poor success that he besought me to consult with a stranger
who had brought from Germany an entirely novel mode of prac-
tice. With much reluctance I consented, and the result was
that the patient passed into Dr. Gram's care entirely, experienc-
ing early and marked benefit from the change, which I ascribed
to his improved diet. But as I could not answer Gram's argu-
ments in support of the new method, and as my training, read-
ing and experience, which had been unusually extensive for so
young a man, had failed to inspire me with confidence in any
past or existing plan of therapeutics, I was soon ready to put
the method of Hahnemann to the test of a fair but rigorous
observation. Moreover, Gram's inimitable modesty in debate,
and his earnest zeal for the good and the true in all ways and
directions, and his vast culture in science and art, in history and
philosophy, greatly surpassing in these respects any of the
academic or medical professors I had known, very much short-
ened my dialectic opposition to the new system. I selected three
cases for the trial; the first, hæmoptysis in a scrofulous girl,
<
OF HOMEOPATHY.
293
complicated with amenorrhoea; the second, mania puerperalis of
three months' standing; and the last, anasarca and ascites in an
habitual drunkard. Following Gram's instructions, I furnished
the proper registry of the symptoms in each case. He patiently
and faithfully waded through the six volumes of Hahnemann's
Materia Medica (luckily we had no manuals then), and pre-
scribed a single remedy in each case. The first and third cases
were promptly cured by a single dose of the remedy prescribed,
and the conditions as to diet and moral impressions were so
arranged by me (Gram did not see either of the patients) that,
greatly to my surprise and joy, very little room was left for a
doubt as to the efficacy of the specifics applied. The case of
mania was perhaps the stronger testimony of the two. The
patient was placed under the rule of diet for fourteen days,
previous to the administration of the remedy chosen by Gram.
Not the slightest mitigation of the maniacal sufferings occurred
at that time. At the time of the giving of the remedy, which
was a single drop of very dilute tincture of Nux vomica in a drink
of sweetened water, the patient was more furious than usual,
tearing her clothing off and angrily resisting all attempts to
soothe her. She fully recovered her reason within half an hour
after taking the Nux vomica, and never lost it afterwards. A
fourth case was soon after treated with success, which had a
worse prognosis, if possible, than either of the others.
It was
one of traumatic tetanus. During the first year of my acquaint-
ance with Gram I subjected only my incurables and the least
promising instances of the curables to Dr. Gram's experiments;
but this was simply because I could not read the language of
the "Materia Medica," and it was impossible to do any more
without a knowledge of the German.
Dr. Vanderburg, another of the physicians converted by
Gram, gives the following account of their first meeting: I was
attending a gentleman on Pearl street, one of whose toes were
set at right angles with his foot by a contraction of the tendon.
I wished him to have it divided, and he assented unwillingly.
The next day Dr. Gray and myself met according to agreement,
when he discharged us both. Thirty days afterwards I met him
walking the street with his toe adjusted. I asked him how it
was done, and he said Dr. Gram had given him sugar pellets the
size of a mustard seed, and thus straightened the toe. Having
294
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
no prejudice to encounter, I straightway introduced myself to
Dr. Gram. I found him using a gigantic intellect with the sim-
plicity of a child, entirely unconscious of its power. He seemed
to be learned beyond the books and with his capacious mind was
working out the problems and primal facts of science from his
own standpoint. I saw at a glance that he dwarfed my propor-
tions immeasurably, and that I had been creeping in a labyrinth
while he was walking in the noonday sun. My first trial of his
skill was remarkable. A lady, aged 36 years, came from Hudson
to consult me on board a steamer. She had been for four years
ill with what she called black jaundice; I had lost a sister with
the same disease. I took a careful record of her case and on my
return home I met Gram at his door and asked him to read the
record. He said she had been poisoned with bark, and Chamo-
milla would cure her. I said I had prescribed that and Arsenic
besides. He said that the Arsenic was wrong; that in three
days after the Chamomilla was taken the old chill of four years
ago would reappear, but so feebly that she would recover with-
out another. His prophecy proved true.
In 1828 Gram was elected a member of the New York Medical
and Philosophical Society, and a year afterwards was the presi-
dent. He was now recognized as a man of vast scientific and
literary attainments.
Gray says: Gram failed in health completely just as the new
period began to dawn upon us. Broken in heart by the mis-
fortunes, insanity and death of his only brother, upon whom he
lavished all the estate he brought with him from Europe, he was
attacked with apoplexy in May, 1839, from which he awoke with
hemiplegia; after many months of suffering he passed away on
February 26, 1840, Wilson and I tenderly cared for him, and
Curtis watched him as a faithful son would a beloved father.
He was an earnest Christian of the Swedenborgian faith, and a
man of the most scrupulously pure and charitable life I have
ever known. In the presence of want, sorrow and disease,
secluded from all observation of the world, he ministered with
angelic patience and with divine earnestness.
Gram was buried in St. Mark's Burial Ground, between
Eleventh and Twelfth streets, New York city, but on September
4, 1862, his old-time friend and pupil, Dr. John F. Gray, re-
moved the remains to his own lot in Greenwood Cemetery.
In
OF HOMEOPATHY.
295
the October number of the American Hom. Review for 1862
articles were published by both Drs. Smith and Barlow cnocern-
ing Gram. Dr. Barlow's article is as follows: “Hans B. Gram,
M. D., died Feb. 18, 1840, aged 54 years." So reads a marble
tombstone erected over his grave in St. Mark's Burial Ground,
between Eleventh and Twelfth streets, on the east side of Second
avenue, in the city of New York. On the 4th day of Septem-
ber, 1862, the grave of Dr. Gram was opened and the remains
taken up for removal to the private ground of Dr. John F. Gray,
in Greenwood Cemetery, where, in a lovely spot his remains have
reached a permanent resting place. I had requested to be per-
mitted to be present at the exhumation, which request was read-
ily and kindly granted. I had but a few moments' examination
of the Calvarium and therefore do not attempt a full or particular
deliniation of the man's character, but only a few cursory re-
marks upon a few of his best and most interesting characteristics,
for as I took no notes of the examination at the time, my memory
would not serve to retain the points necessary to a full description
of his many excellent qualities as pointed out by his cerebral or-
ganization. The body had rested twenty-two years and a half in
dry ground, and although the shell which encased the remains.
had very much decayed, still the muslin or veil which had been
laid over the face was found entire and firm enough to bear any
amount of handling. The hair, which was black, though in life
dark auburn, and tastefully arranged, was still glossy and re-
tained its position as entirely as when the body was laid out for
burial. The maxillæ showed a full and beautiful set of perfectly
clean, white, polished teeth, with the exception of one left side
lower molar, which had evidently been lost during life. I esti-
mate his height to have been five feet ten inches; friends of his
who still live say he was from five feet eight and a half to five feet
nine and a half inches. Theirs is a guess from recollection after
a lapse of twenty-two and a half years; mine a judgment formed
from an inspection of the thigh bone and comparison with my
own. I think my guess the better. Gram's skull was of a full
medium size, with a good breadth of forehead, showing that he
had possessed a great amount of volume of the perceptive and re-
flective organs. The head was what all phrenologists would de-
nominate a well-balanced head, having none of the organs devel-
oped much in excess, nor were any deficient in any disparaging
296
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
degree. Combativeness was large, so as to lead some to the sup-
position that he was hasty and pugnacious, but with caution
which controlled the fiery tendencies of the man, rendering him
only suitably alive to the resisting and resenting whatever was
wrong. Possessing firmness in a large degree in conjunction with
large combativeness and cautiousness made him persistent in his
resentments, an instance of which may be still well remembered
by many of his friends-I mean his resentment toward Dr. Chan-
ning, a most estimable and friendly man, for having incautiously
given airing to the fact of his (Gram) being a Homœopathist.
Dr. Gram never forgave his friend for the indiscretion, for that
was the first step toward Gram's fall in the estimation of the
faculty in New York, where such men as Hosack, Post, Mc-
Neven, Mott. Rogers, Stevens, and a host of other eminent
names, who, up to that time had been his admirers and had con-
sidered him one of the most talented, learned and skilful men in
this country, at once became his bitter, persistent, unrelenting and
unscrupulous enemies and persecutors, and so remained until he
died, when the mantle of their obloquy and wrath descended
with no gossamer lightness and gentleness upon the heads of his
surviving confrères.
That Gram was a man of indomitable courage and firmness is
testified most unmistakably by the size of the organs pertaining
to the existence and activity of that sentiment. If pecuniary or
other mercenary motives were the actuating powers operating
upon him, his courage might perhaps be shaken, but I believe
that he would have braved death by fire and fagot, or the cross,
where truth, humanity and the love of his species were to be
defended. I should say he knew no fear, but the fear of doing
wrong. Veneration was full in Dr. Gram, but not excessive,
and under such control of other counterbalancing organs that I
should not expect him to have been under any bias toward
fanaticism or superstition, but on the contrary, the possessor
of a cheerful, radiant and enlightened liberality of opinion and
expression. He had the organ of acquisitiveness and secretive-
ness full, under such controlling surveillance of the more noble
and generous sentiments, such as conscientiousness and benevo
lence, that I should judge he could not have known an avari-
cious feeling; but that on the contrary, if he had been placed in
circumstances in which easy accumulation had been possible to
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
297
•
him, he would have died a poor man, or at least in moderate
circumstances, through the operation of his ever active and well-
developed social and benevolent sentiments. I may be wrong
in this, but the judgment derived from a somewhat careful sur-
vey of the cranium of the man can only lead me to and fix me
in this conclusion of the prevailing tendencies of the individual.
The organs of color, weight, size, constructiveness, etc., show
him to have been capable of excelling in almost any of the arts
or sciences which engage the attention of the active, the am-
bitious and aspiring.
His organization showed him to have been capable of ex-
celling in languages, and though I never saw the man and
never heard a remark in relation to his capacity in that direction,
yet I could not help concluding that he had a capacity for ex-
celling in linguistic performances. Was not the possession of
such a capacity the great predominating reason why his English
is much better than that of thousands of other educated for-
eigners, who have had equal or even greater opportunity of
learning to think and speak in English than he had, for though
Dr. Gram was born and lived some years in America during his
youth, yet his education was essentially European. His
pamphlet entitled, "The Characteristics of Homœopathia," is a
monument most creditable to his thought and expression in
German-English. I opine that he was disposed to gravity
of thought and expression on all subjects, whether religious,
social, moral or scientific; and if I may indulge a thought in
connection with the faculties of numbers, time and tune-which
he must have possessed in a full medium degree—I should say he
had been disposed to run into thought in number or measure,
and to express his soul-feeling in the humming or singing grave
songs or tunes. I would gladly know from those who knew him
well if I am correct in this conclusion. I said at first sight of
Gram's skull that he was a grave man, and I cannot change the
opinion I then formed on the instant—that a vein of gravity and
dignity attached itself to the expression of his entire being. I
am informed, since the above was written, that Gram was much
in the habit of humming and singing, as I have conjectured, and
this information comes from Dr. Gray, than whom few men knew
better Gram's habits.
With a good breadth and depth of perceptive and reflective
298
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
faculties, as indicated by his cerebral organization, was conjoined
a not exuberant glomeration of the more purely animal facul-
ties; to which fact perhaps more than to the controlling force of
exterior circumstances may be attributed the fact of his having
remained single through life, and to the same order of things
may we also attribute the great fact of his excellence as a man,
a social companion and a faithful collaborateur in the walks of
medical and general science.
Veneration, consciousness, benevolence, combativeness, cau-
tiousness, firmness, attachment to friends and to whatever was
good, true, just and humane were all characteristics of Dr. Gram,
and the active operations of those sentiments could not but
render their possessor a pleasant companion, a good man, a
kindly physician, the central luminary of whatever circle he was
placed in, not assuming, dictatorial or arrogant in manner, what-
ever feelings of superiority he may have felt toward those by
whom he was surrounded, he could not but endear himself
strongly to his friends and pupils, creating ties, the severing of
which at his departure must have been painful indeed. Hence
I find every person who knew him well still speaking in terms of
the most endearing tenderness of him as a most estimable friend.
Naturally he was, doubtless, a brilliant, cheerful and happy
man; but opposition, detraction and persecution had rendered
him somewhat morose, taciturn, suspicious and distrustful—even
of his best friends, embittering the evening of his days, produc-
ing infirmities which brought a gloomy obscuration over his
faculties and sentiments and throwing clouds of disappointment
and unhappiness over his fastest friends.
Future generations of physicians will do honor to the memory
of Hans B. Gram. The plate on his coffin bore the following
inscription, portions of which were difficult to decipher, but I am
sure it was all finally made out in perfection: "Hans B. Gram,
M. D., a Knight of the Order of St. John, died Feb. 18, 1840,
aged 53 years." (There is a discrepancy of one year in his age
as given upon the coffin plate and that inscribed on his tomb-
stone.)
Since the foregoing was written and finished without consult-
ing anyone as to Gram's characteristics, I have consulted with
several persons who knew Gram more intimately than probably
any others now living among us, and have been most agreeably
OF HOMEOPATHY.
299
surprised by their entire and perfect confirmation of my estimate.
of Gram's character in every particular. Dr. A. D. Wilson says
that Gram was possessed of a most immovable courage, firmness
and self-possession, and gives some illustrations of these traits of
character. When Gram lived in Copenhagen and was a physi-
cian or surgeon in the National Military and Naval Hospital
there, a menagerie of wild beasts was there exhibited by legal
permission; among the animals was a full grown lion. While
Gram was present the keeper entered the cage of the lion as was
his custom, but being somewhat intoxicated, the lion became
enraged and attacked the man. Gram seized a great iron fork
which was used to feed the lion with, and thrust it into the roof
of the mouth of the infuriated beast; he put up his paw, sent the
fork twenty feet with great force, one prong of the instrument
remaining broken off in the palatal bone; this diverted the lion's
attention so that the keeper crawled out of the cage both fright-
ened and injured. By the time Gram had regained the fork the
animal was out of the cage and coming at him in rage, roaring
furiously. Gram sprang towards the animal, placed his hand on
the lion's shoulder holding the instrument pointed at his mouth
and fixed his eyes firmly on those of the beast, maintaining an
unshaken look of commanding firmness; their eyes were thus
engaged for a few moments, when the lion cowed before the look
of intense bravery and sovereignty which Gram gave him, turned
meekly away and walked into the cage. Dr. W. says Gram was
afraid of nothing earthly except doing wrong.-S. B. Barlow,
M. D.
At a meeting of the New York State Homeopathic Medical
Society held at the Cooper Institute in New York, September
14, 1869, Dr. J. F. Gray asked the Society to take measures for
a more public commemoration of the labors of Dr. Gram. The
Society, on motion of Dr. Paine, appointed a committee on the
erection of a monument in Greenwood Cemetery over his remains.
This committee was as follows: Drs. John F. Gray, L. Hallock,
S. B. Barlow, B. F. Bowers, Carroll Dunham, H. D. Paine, R. C.
Moffatt, I. T. Talbot, Walter Williamson, G. E. Shipman, Wm.
H. Holcombe. Dr. H. D. Paine was appointed treasurer.
contributions were fixed at $1.00. A circular was issued headed,
"Dollar Subscription for a Monument to H. B. Gram, M. D., the
First Homœopathic Physician in the United States." It stated
The
300
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
that the body had been laid in Greenwood but without monu-
ment. When the subscription was completed a pamphlet was to
be issued to each contributor containing an engraving of Dr.
Gram, of the monument and a sketch of his life, and a list of the
names of subscribers. In so far as the writer knows this monu-
ment was never erected. A copy of this is in the N. E. Med.
Gazette, October, 1869. (N. E. Med. Gaz., vol. 4, pp. 375, 386;
Trans. N. Y. State Hom.
Soc., 1863. U. S. Med. Surg. Jour., vol. 2, July, 1867. Pam-
phlet—Early Annals of Hom. in New York, Gray. Trans. N. Y.
St. Hom. Soc., vol. 9, p. 639; vol. 8, p. 670; vol. 1, p. 93.
World's
Con., vol. 2, p. 441. Trans. Mass. Hom. Soc., vol. 1. Hom.
Exam., vol. 1. (1840), p. 101. Hahn. Monthly, vol. 7, p. 84.
Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 3, p. 184.)
vol. 6, p 93· Cleave's Biography.
G
·
JOHN GRANGER. John Granger came from Paris early in
1833, and opened an office at No. 63 Canal St., New York. At that
time he was a non-graduate. He afterwards resided in St. Louis
where he had an extensive practice. He was, in 1876, living in
New York, but was not in practice. He published a small
pamphlet entitled, "The Homoeopathic Treatment for Chronic
and Acute Diseases." (World's Con., vol. 2, p. 450. N. E.
Med. Gaz., March, 1871. Bradford's Bibliography, p. 91.)
GRANIER. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy at Nimes,
France.
GRAY, JOHN FRANKLIN. The following memoir was
published by the American Institute of Homœopathy in 1882:
Dr. Gray was born in 1804, in Sherburn, a village of central
New York, of which his grandfather was the pioneer and
founder. He was the fourth of five sons of the Hon. John Gray,
first judge of Chenango county, a man of marked ability and
dignified manners. While still a youth this son conceived a
strong preference for the medical profession; but in consequence
of financial losses his father was no longer able to provide him
with such an education as he deemed requisite for so responsible
a calling. When fifteen years old young Gray obtained, after
much entreaty, the privilege of undertaking his own support,
both as some relief to his father's burdens and as the only
means of accomplishing his cherished object of becoming a phy-
sician. The story of the next few years of his life was one of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
301
severe toil and self-denial. Discarding the amusements usual to
his years, he devoted all his time and efforts to the one great pur-
pose the acquisition of a liberal education and a profession.
The details of this trying period need not now be recounted.
After engaging for some time in a mechanical employment as a
means of clothing himself, he thought himself fortunate in
obtaining a situation as an assistant and student with a reputa-
ble physician in the village of Hamilton, Madison county, the
seat of an excellent academy-since expanded into Madison
University-where his services were accepted as an equivalent
for his board and the opportunity for study and instruction.
Though his duties were neither few nor light, he managed by
an economical use of time to make remarkable progress in
general and even classical studies. In the latter department he
was much assisted by one of the teachers of the academy near
by, who observing his extraordinary intelligence and devotion
to study, gave him such help as he required. After two years
of this kind of discipline and experience, he found himself
qualified to become a teacher, and with the consent of his
employer accepted a position as such in a neighboring district
school. With the money thus earned he was able to renew his
well-worn wardrobe and to visit his home, then removed to the
extreme western part of the State. The journey of two hundred
and fifty miles he accomplished on foot with the help of such
occasional lifts as came in his way. The following years were
but a continuation of similar experiences. Teaching school
when necessary to supply his wants, or to lay by a store for the
future expenses of college life, he wasted no time in pursuits,
much less in pleasures, calculated to divert him from his pur-
pose. By the time he was to set out for the city his acquire-
ments appear to have been quite equal, if not superior, to the
general range of college graduates. At the same time he was
well posted in such branches of medical science as he had pur-
sued under the direction of his successive preceptors, particu-
larly Dr. Williams, of Dunkirk.
Our student arrived in New York in the fall of 1824, being
then twenty years of age, provided with a few but valuable
letters from old friends of his father to two or three members of
the college faculty. One from Gov. Clinton to Dr. Hosack
brought him to the favorable notice of the leading physician of
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
New York, who soon conceived a warm regard for the young
man, founded upon a perception of the strong points in his
character, admitting him freely to his private classes, and in
many ways assisting and encouraging him.
He received his degree from the College of Physicians and
Surgeons in March, 1826. He had previously passed an ex-
amination for a license before the county, society with a view of
taking the position of assistant surgeon in the navy that had
been offered him, but which by advice of his friends he declined.
Instead of returning to the country after graduation, for the
practice of his art as he had intended, he was further persuaded
by Dr. Hosack and others to remain in the city, and as an as-
surance of their confidence and good will they secured for him
an appointment in the New York Hospital with a small salary,
which delayed his departure for a year. In the meantime he
had made new friends, who seconded the inducements to remain.
These arguments were now more effective than before from the
fact that he had formed an engagement of marriage with the
accomplished lady who afterwards became his wife-the daughter
of Dr. Amos G. Hull, a well-known surgeon of New York, and
the father of our late honored associate, Dr. A. Gerald Hull.
He opened an office in Charlton street, and with the aid of his
older professional friends soon found himself encouraged by the
accession of a considerable practice. His relations with many
influential and distinguished members of the profession were
highly flattering. He was regarded as a young man of unusual
promise and ability, and certain to attain an eminent rank at no
distant day.
We now approach a turning point in the life of Dr. Gray of
special interest in relation to the introduction and early history
of Homœopathy in this country. Up to the time referred to the
peculiar medical doctrines of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann were
scarcely known or heard of on this side the ocean. If by chance
the subject of Homoeopathy was occasionally mentioned in the
journals, it was only as the latest and strangest medical absurdity
of the age, not worthy of a serious consideration. In 1827, Dr.
Gray became acquainted with Dr. Hans B. Gram, then, so far as
is known, the only physician in the United States who had any
definite knowledge on the subject of Homœopathy. This learned
physician, as is well known, although born in Boston, was of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
303
Danish parentage, and brought up and educated by his father's
family in Denmark, and was for many years in the medical ser-
vice of the Royal Army. Having at length adopted and openly
professed Homoeopathy, he found himself an object of so much.
obloquy, on that account, that he resolved to return to America,
in the expectation that he would here find greater liberty of
opinion and a more ready acceptance of the new principles and
methods. Dr. Gram reached this country in 1824 or 1825; but
his first efforts to disseminate a knowledge of Homoeopathy
among the profession met with no response. Personally he
made many friends, attracted by the wide extent of his learning,
his conversational powers and his genial manners. Through
one of these, Mr. Ferdinand Wilsey, Dr. Gray (who was treating
him for an obstinate chronic affection,) was persuaded to permit
an introduction to Dr. Gram, and to a discussion of the claims
and merits of the new doctrines. After several such interviews,
Dr. Gram, at Dr. Gray's suggestion, offered to make practical
demonstration of the advantages of his method of treating under
Dr. Gray's personal attention any patients that he might select.
Dr. Gray has himself given the record of these experiments,
which were indeed so remarkable and convincing that he felt
obliged to continue the investigation in a wider range of
diseases. As there were but few books upon the subject, and
they written in very technical German, Dr. Gray was obliged to
prepare records of his cases for which he proposed to administer
the homoeopathic remedy, while Dr. Gram selected the drug
according to its similimum. By this joint process the demon-
strations proceeded at first slowly, but with more and more
undeniable proofs, until a considerable variety of affections had
been treated by this method. As soon as he had become satis-
fied that there were merits in the system, Dr. Gray began at
once with his accustomed energy to acquire a knowledge of the
German language as a necessary preparation for independent
study and administration of the remedies. In this, as in other
languages, he soon became remarkably proficient, and was
able to conduct his own experiments. By this time he had
became so convinced of the general applicability of the new law
of cure, that he no longer hesitated to confess the change which
his opinions had undergone.
Dr. Gray's full adoption and open profession of Homœopathy
304
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
may be dated from 1828. The immediate effect of this avowal
was to alienate his former patrons and greatly diminish
the number of his families. Even some who had been
cured homoeopathically without knowing it, declined to trust.
themselves any longer in his care. The carriage that some time
before he had found a necessary adjunct to his practice, had to
be given up as a useless extravagance. Dr. Gram and Dr. Gray
continued, for a time, the only representatives of the new school
in New York, and probably in this country, and the situation at
that time was certainly very discouraging. The future, that a
year before had seemed so full of promise to Dr. Gray, had sud-
denly grown dark and forbidding. His conviction of the sound-
ness and ultimate triumph of his opinions must have been strong
indeed to sustain him unshaken in his faith during this revul-
sion. But the denunciations of the new method and its brace
of confessors, had the effect of compelling the attention of some
thoughtful men to the subject. The first in the city to approach
it in a candid spirit was the late Dr. A. D. Wilson, whose ac-
cession in 1829 was a great encouragement. Dr. Wm. Channing
followed soon after, to the astonishment of friends and to the
great joy of the other converts. Both these men were of the
highest character as physicians, and of excellent social position,
but the first consequence of their act was as disastrous to them
as in the experience of Dr. Gray. Notwithstanding the evident ad-
vantages of the new treatment over the then prevalent "heroic"
measures, it began to make an impression on the public mind,
and returning confidence in their former advisors gradually in-
duced many of the frightened patients to resume their previous
relations. Owing, however, to the deficiency of text books and
practical works, the cause of the new medical reformation made
but slow progress for several years. There were, nevertheless,
occasional accessions to the little band who had the courage to
adopt its principles, and as far as was possible from the difficulty
above alluded to, to apply its methods. Of those who came in
during this period should be remembered Dr. A. Gerald Hull-
Dr. Gray's brother-in-law-and Dr. Federal Vanderberg.
At the first outbreak in New York of the Asiatic cholera in
1832, the above five or six named physicians constituted, as is
believed, the whole homeopathic force in that city. Though
so few in numbers, and with no public hospitals under their ad-
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
305
ministration, the comparative results of the different modes of
treating that fearful disease produced a powerful reaction in
favor of Homoeopathy among the people, and a new impulse was
given to the examination of its claims by numbers of the
medical profession. This inquiry was greatly facilitated by the
publication of translations into French of Hahnemann's "Or-
ganon," the "Materia Medica Pura," and a few other necessary
works. A number of physicians of good repute were soon added
to the homeopathic ranks, and added strength and encourage-
ment to the movement. From the date of the first publication
in French and English, its safety and stability were assured,
and by the time the second epidemic of cholera occurred, in
1834, there was a considerable force of homoeopathic physicians.
in the city ready to contest the field. In this year also Dr.
Gray made the first attempt to establish a medical journal of
Homœopathy in the United States. Several numbers were
issued, but the times were not yet ready for such a work, and it
was soon suspended for want of support.
In the meanwhile Homœopathy had obtained a foot-hold in
Philadelphia and vicinity, where Drs. Ihm, Bute, Wesselhoft
and Hering occupied the ground-these honored pioneers being
all natives of Germany and earnest propagandists of the new
medical faith-and having the advantage of access to the whole
range of homœopathic literature, their example and teaching
exerted a more rapid influence than was the case in New York,
where the accessions were, for many years, aitogether from the
native professional ranks, and growth was comparatively slow.
But with the translation and importation of expository and prac-
tical works in the English language, the knowledge of homoeo-
pathic principles was more rapidly disseminated, and in a few
years its practitioners began to be heard of in other cities. In
1840 Dr. Gray, in conjunction with Dr. Hull, revived the publi-
cation of his journal under the new title of the Homeopathic
Examiner, which was continued for about four years, and until,
from their greatly increased practice, further editorial labors be-
came impracticable. It was a most useful and well conducted
magazine, and discussed the topics presented in a scientific and
dignified manner.
-
About 1843 the number of homoeopathic physicians had so
largely increased, not only in New York and Philadelphia, but
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PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in various other places, that there was felt a necessity for a
more intimate union and co-operation among them. Dr. Gray
advocated in the New York Homoeopathic Physicians' Society
that year, the calling of a convention of all the practitioners of
the school to consider the matter. A committee was appointed,
a correspondence was opened, and a meeting was held in New
York on the following anniversary of Hahnemann's birthday,
April 10th, 1844, a day ever memorable as the beginning of the
American Institute of Homœopathy. Dr. Gray was most active
in securing the success of the undertaking, which some feared
might be premature. Nearly fifty physicians from different
States were either present in person or by proxy.
During the remainder of his long and useful life, Dr. Gray
was constantly engaged in the duties of an unusually large
and lucrative practice, and verified in a remarkable degree,
though in a different way, the predictions of his early patrons
who recognized his genius and were assured of his future emin-
ence.
In various ways he continued his interest and efforts in
behalf of the cause whose inauguration once cost him so dear,
but the enumeration of which would extend this memoir far be-
yond the limits that could reasonably be demanded. It has been
the object of the writer to dwell chiefly upon those features of
his early experience, and especially his connection with the
introduction and first planting of Homoeopathy in this country,
that are not generally known.
For several years our venerable friend had suffered from a
chronic affection of the bladder, but notwithstanding the dis-
tress and weakness that at times assailed him, he devoted him-
self with a persistency to his calling that continually surprised
his friends, till within a short period of his death. The sick-
ness, however, from which he died, was not connected directly
with the cystic trouble, but resulted from senile gangrene of the
foot, which caused his decease on the 6th of June, 1882, one
week before the annual meeting of the American Institute of
Homœopathy. The next September he would have completed
his seventy-eighth year. His funeral drew together a great as-
sembly of people; an eloquent and appreciative address was
preached by the Rev. Dr. John Hall, and many tributes to his
genius and worth have already been contributed by the public
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
307
press. Other commemorations of this sad event will doubtless
follow, indicative of the high estimation in which he has so
long been held.
The following account was published in several journals in
1882:
At a meeting of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of the
County of New York, held June 14, 1882, the following remarks
and resolutions were offered by Lewis Hallock, M. D., and
adopted by the society and ordered to be published in the daily
papers:
To Dr. John F. Gray is due by unanimous consent, the dis-
tinction of having been the first convert to the practice of
Homœopathy in America, and the pioneer of the 6,000 converts
who now embrace and practice the law of similia throughout our
land.
As early as 1827, the year after his graduation at the College
of Physicians and Surgeons of this city, Dr. Gray became ac-
quainted with the principles of Homoeopathy through the suc-
cessful treatment by Dr. Gram of a patient whom he had long in
vain tried to cure, and at once began to investigate and test the
new method of practice. This investigation resulted, as it has
since in the history of many of his followers, and as we believe
it would in nearly all intelligent physicians who will carefully
and candidly make it, in accepting and practicing this new and
better system.
The example and success of Dr. Gray soon awakened the in-
terest and inquiry of his early classmates, and in 1829 Dr.
Abram D. Wilson became the second convert, followed in slow
succession by Drs. Hull, Channing and Curtis. Soon after these
accessions Dr. Gray, in 1834, published the American Journal of
Homeopathy, and thus extended more widely the knowledge of
the new practice; but the number of subscribers were so small,
and the time and labor required to continue his almost unaided
efforts, so great, that the periodical was suspended at the end of
two years.
After an interval of four years he resumed the pub-
lication under the title of the Homeopathic Examiner, when he
received the able assistance of Dr. Hull as associate editor.
To Dr. Gray, therefore, we are indebted for the first American
homoeopathic literature, the previous few publications having
been almost entirely in German; this language he early learned
308
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
by the advice and aid of Dr. Gram, that he might have access to
the original source of instruction.
Until this period the principles of Homoeopathy were little
known, and its converts confined to half a dozen ardent young
physicians whose new ideas of practice were regarded as vision-
ary and ridiculous, and but little was said by them to their pro-
fessional acquaintances, as I can well testify, for though often
meeting Dr. Gray, after years of early intimacy, as fellow stu-
dents and graduates of the same medical class, rarely was the
subject of the new practice referred to, or efforts made to induce
others to adopt it. Dr. Gray did, indeed, report the successful
treatment of two or three inveterate cases by remedies new and
unknown to the regular practice, at some of the meetings of a
small association, mostly members of our graduating class,
termed the "Medical and Physiological Society," the records of
which remain with me as its last secretary; but as little or no
allusion was made to the theory of the treatment, they were re-
garded as cases of fortunate success and received little special
attention. On one occasion, however, the president after our
adjournment, inquired of Dr. Gray what induced him to give
Arsenic for the cure of the burning symptoms in the case he had
just reported; and added, if it was in accordance with the vision-
ary theory of that German, Hahnemann, "I advise you not to
have anything to do with it-it is all delusion-and is already
about dead in Europe." The incredulity and opposition to the new
practice thus foreshadowed, and the absence of an Engish litera-
ture to which they could refer early inquiries, doubtless pre-
vented Dr. Gray and the few first pioneers of our case, from
urging its importance upon the attention of their medical
brethren; until the publication of the Homœopathic Examiner,
in 1840, and the translation of "Jahr's Manual" and the
"Symtomen Codex," by Dr. Hull and the editor of Laurie's
Practice, and other popular works; introduced an English Ho-
mœopathic Literature to all candid inquirers. From that time
converts to the new practice became more frequent, and soon
Drs. Curtis, Channing, Cook, Taylor and Freeman (now all de-
parted), and later, Drs. Bayard, Ball, McVickar and others of this
city, including five of the class graduating with Dr. Gray, of
whom Dr. W. C. Palmer and myself are believed to be the only
survivors, were added to the number.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
309
During those years of growth and struggle, Dr. Gray was, I
think, by all regarded as a pioneer and leader of our cause, and
his office was a rendezvous for frequent intercourse and consulta-
tion. All felt the need of mutual encouragement and support,
for at an early period the bare report of a tendency to Homo-
opathy subjected the physician to loss of caste and character
among his professional associates, excluded him from their fel-
lowship, and turned friendship to enmity and aversion.
How great the change can hardly be realized by the Homoeo-
paths of the present day, for now the waning opposition of
prejudiced rivals is little feared and more than compensated by
the respect and confidence of an appreciative community.
For this result, and the established success of our system of
practice, the Homoeopaths of this city are pre-eminently indebted
to the early labors, and long and skillful practice of Dr. Gray,
and we but respect and justify ourselves in recording his merits.
and doing honor to his memory. To give appropriate expression
to these feelings, I beg to offer the following resolutions:
-
WHEREAS, In the allotted dispensation of Divine Providence,
Dr. John F. Gray, the first convert and pioneer practitioner of
Homœopathy in this city, has been removed by death, we, the
members of the Homœopathic Medical Society of the County of
New York, of which he was an early and honored member,
hereby record our estimate of the character and usefulness of our
departed brother, therefore,
Resolved, That the death of Dr. Gray removes from our midst
not only the first American convert to the principles and practice
of Homœopathy, but one whose early literary publications and
subsequent prolonged and successful practice were pre-eminently
useful in introducing and promoting the new and improved
system of medicine, to which our lives and labors are devoted.
Resolved, That the example and influence of Dr. Gray were
especially useful in leading and encouraging many of his pro-
fessional associates to adopt the principles of Homœopathy, and
thus extend and spread its blessings throughout our land.
Resolved, That we cherish and honor his memory as a talented
and skillful physician, conscientious and faithful to his patients,
prompt and clear in diagnosis, ready and decided in practice, an
able and wise counselor with his brethren in difficult and danger-
ous diseases.
Resolved, That these resolutions be entered upon our minutes,
and a copy be furnished to the relatives of the deceased.
Dr. H. D. Paine seconded the resolutions. In doing so he
310
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
spoke of the death of Dr. Gray as an event of historical interest
to every homoeopathic physician throughout the land. It marks
an epoch in the progress of our school. At the mention of his
name, the mind reverts to the fact that he was the first of Ameri-
can physicians to discover and appreciate the truth of the thera-
peutic law of Hahnemann. When we consider the present posi-
tion of Homœopathy in the United States; its thousands of
adherents, professional and lay-its colleges, hospitals, societies,
and other institutions firmly planted in every part of the land-
it seems almost incredible that all this growth should have been
effected within the life of one man; that the first convert should
have lived to see this marvellous change, and that, too, in the
face of an opposition, determined, vindictive and uncompromis-
ing beyond anything similar in the history of the medical pro-
fession.
K
The man who took the initiative in the beginnings of this
marvellous revolution is but just dead, and the resolutions just.
offered expressed, no doubt, the unanimous feeling, not only of
this society, but of the great mass of our colleagues throughout the
United States. Had Dr. Gray been a man less remarkable than
he was, the obligations that we, as a body, owe to him as the
pioneer of Homoeopathy, would not be less than are stated in the
resolutions now before us. Dr. Hallock has expressed in these
resolutions and in his remarks, the feelings with which he is re-
garded by the members of our school, and the duty we owe to
his memory on account of the part which he filled for so many
years as its leading representative.
But Dr. Gray was a remarkable character who would have
stood out from the ordinary ranks of men though he had never
heard of Homœopathy. Earnest and fearless in the investigation
of problems in nature and science challenging his attention;
frank and unhesitating in advocacy of his convictions; a quickly
discriminating judgment, and a manner peculiar and bordering
upon the eccentric; he would have been a notable character in
whatever profession or position in life he had found himself.
Dr. Paine then gave a sketch of Dr. Gray's early life, and of
the difficulties with which he had to struggle in the attain-
ment of his cherished purpose to acquire an education, and to
become a physician. Born in 1806, in a small town in central
New York (of which his grandfather was the founder), one of a
OF HOMEOPATHY.
31I
large family, comprising five sons, and with narrow means, and
few facilities for learning beyond the district schools of the
country, the prospect of the accomplishment of his ambitious de-
sires seemed sufficiently remote.
When about sixteen years of
age he obtained, after much persuasion, the parental consent to
make his own living and follow his own plans. The history of
the next few years was one of hardships, privation and constant
application. Avoiding the diversions of boyhood and every en-
ticement to distract his attention from his one great aim, he
steadily pursued his way, overcoming, one after another, the
obstacles that appeared, but did not discourage him. His self-
renouncing perseverance was rewarded, not only by success in
acquiring an excellent classical and scientific education, but had
made him influential friends. Armed with letters from Gov.
Clinton, an old friend of his father, and one or two others, and
with a small sum of his own earnings in his pocket, he came to
New York, in 1824, with a view of completing his studies at the
Medical College. His letters were effectual in introducing him
to Prof. Hosack and other leading members of the aculty, who
soon became charmed with his intelligence, his studious habits
and his close attention. The most rigid economy was abso-
lutely necessary to make his little store sufficient for his expen-
ses. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons,
then situated in Barclay street, in the spring of 1836, intending
to return to the country to practice his profession. So nearly
expended, by that time, were his scanty means, that it was a
question whether he had enough to carry him home-then re-
moved to the extreme western part of the State-when he fortu-
nately was offered the position of assistant house physician in
the New York Hospital, and a small salary therewith. At the
same time, some of his friends in the faculty, evidently conscious
of his unusual abilities, strongly urged him to remain in the
city, promising their patronage and influence until he should be-
come established. This promise was so well kept that, after the
expiration of his engagement at the hospital, and upon putting
out his sign in Charlton street, he soon found himself quite busy
with an encouraging practice. His early marriage with a daugh-
ter of Dr. Amos G. Hull, happily determined his decision to re-
main in the city. So prosperous were his affairs that before the
end of his first year he found it desirable to set up a buggy.
312
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
C
Among the patients who had placed themselves under his care,
was a Mr. Milsey, a merchant of New York, suffering from a
long-standing, chronic malady, for which no physician had been
able to find a remedy. After many interviews, his patient began
to speak to Dr. Gray of a certain foreign and learned physician
whose acquaintance he had made in his Masonic lodge, and
whose opinions about medicine were so new and strange that he
knew not what to make of him; but having become somewhat
intimate with him he had spoken to him of his own complaint,
and had been encouraged to hope for relief under a different
method of treatment, but his friend had declined to prescribe
without Dr. Gray's consent. The doctor declined a consultation,
but advised his patient to accept his friend's services. This was
in 1827. The effect of the experiment was so favorable, and
withal so speedy and complete, that throwing aside his preju-
dices, Dr. Gray consented to an interview, which led to a mutual
and life-long friendship. It is not necessary to add that this
'Foreign Doctor" was Hans B. Gram, who though really born
in this country, was of Danish paternity and education. After
practicing medicine for many years in Denmark, he adopted the
newly promulgated system of Homoeopathy, and determined to
return to America as an apostle and missionary of the new medi-
cal faith. He came in 1824, but until his acquaintance with Dr.
Gray, he found no hearing from those, his medical brethren, who
he vainly thought would receive his message with gladness, if
not with enthusiasm.
، 1
Dr. Gray, with his sharp perception, quickly caught the es-
sential features of this new method and saw the possibilities of a
great reform, which, if true, it was sure to effect. To test the
practical value of the system still further, he consulted Dr. Gram
about many intractable cases, and administered the medicines
that he prescribed. This was necessary, inasmuch as the few
books upon Homoeopathy yet published were all in the German
language, which, at that time, Dr. Gray did not understand.
Before many months, but not till after many anxious searchings.
of heart, he became so convinced of the truth involved in the
now familiar law of Homœopathy that he could no longer resist
making an open avowal of the fact. The result was what he, no
doubt, foresaw, an immediate withdrawal of favor and aid from
those who had heretofore befriended him, the loss of much of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
313
the remunerative part of his practice, and the disfavor and forebod-
ings of relatives and friends. Notwithstanding this experience
which came sharp and quick, he never faltered, so sure he was
of the truth and the ultimate triumph of the doctrine he had es-
poused. Besides, he had learned patience in the school of ad-
versity.
It was in 1828 that his apostasy from the orthodox methods
became publicly known. To add to the difficulties of his posi-
tion, he was still largely dependant upon Dr. Gram's aid in so
much practice as remained to him, owing to his ignorance of
German. This defect he immediately set himself about to re-
pair, with the same diligence that he exercised in the earlier
part of his education. In a remarkably short time he became
sufficiently expert to read the few works he had, by himself.
No works expository of the Hahnemannian doctrines were writ-
ten or published in English till several years later. So there
was little chance for making converts, and accordingly Dr. Gray
and Dr. Gram stood alone, until the following year Dr. A. D.
Wilson had the courage to make a third in the little company.
The next year Dr. Channing avowed his belief in the new sys-
tem. Both of them men of learning and ability, and practitioners
of established reputation, their conversion caused no little excite-
ment. This brings the history down to 1830. Dr. Paine was
not aware of any other accessions until the first cholera epidemic
in 1832, or about that time. Dr. A. Gerald Hull, a brother-in-
law of Dr. Gray, was preparing to enter the profession under his
and Dr. Gram's direction. Dr. J. T. Curtis was still a student
of Dr. Gram. Both brilliant and strong men, who afterwards
distinguished themselves in behalf of the cause. Dr. Paine's
first personal acquaintance with Dr. Gray was in 1833, while a
student in the office of the elder Dr. Hull. Discussions on the
subject of Homœopathy were frequent and earnest, and he soon
came to know the men who were engaged, or interested, in the
struggle, and the successive steps of its progress. As had been
the case in Europe, the comparative results of the different
methods of treating the Asiatic cholera, had drawn public atten-
tion to the advantages of Homoeopathy, and there began to be a
demand for homoeopathic practitioners, and, of course, for infor-
mation and means of studying the system. Books began to
appear, mostly translations from the German, first into French,
314
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and after into English. With these increased facilities, conver-
sions became more numerous. Drs. Kirby, Vanderberg, and
other important accessions were among the foremost. In 1834,
another epidemic of cholera occurred in New York, with still
more favorable results to Homœopathy, owing to the larger
number of practitioners capable of applying it. From that date,
the progress of our school has been steadily upward. Its history
in this city and State is known to many here.
The colleagues of Dr. Gray in these first years are all departed.
He who stood the chief figure in the little band outlived them
all, and many of those who came later into the field. Now he
has also gone, and we do well to pay, at least, our grateful
tributes to his memory.
E. CARLTON, President.
F. H. BOYNTON, Secretary.
Among the remarks made at the memorial meeting of the
American Institute of Homœopathy were the following:
I. T. TALBOT, M. D.: Mr. President: I have here some mem-
oranda of our lamented friend and pioneer, John Franklin Gray,
M. D., L, L. D. It may perhaps, be interesting to those who are
not familiar with his history, to know something of his early
life. He was born in Sherburn, Chenango county, N. Y., Sep-
tember 24th, 1804. His grandfather was a prominent man, and
was one of the founders of the town. His father was a judge,
his mother the daughter of a prominent clergyman, and both
were of English origin. In January, 1820, he began the study
of medicine with Dr. Haven; in 1821, and later, continued with
Dr. Williams. In 1824, in the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, he pursued his study, received his license to practice in
1825 and the Doctorate in 1826. He entered upon a successful
practice; in fact, few young men ever entered the medical profes-
sion in the State of New York with such flattering prospects;
friends flocked to him on every side; he was esteemed by the
faculty, by the physicians, and by the community.
In 1827,
when he had been in full practice but little more than a year, a
professorship in the college and position in the hospitals were
open for him.
He was introduced by a Mr. Wilsey, afterwards
Dr. Wilsey, to Dr. Gram. Dr. Gram, as you may remember,
was a native of Boston, who had been educated in Copenhagen
and came to New York in 1825. In 1826, as I have said, Mr.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
315
Wilsey introduced Dr. Gray to him. For two years after that,
Dr. Gray held frequent conferences with Dr. Gram. Surprised,
at first, at the strange doctrine which Dr. Gram proclaimed, un-
used to the kind of reasoning and observation in regard to medi-
cine, Dr. Gray was unwilling to accept his statement, until he
had personally made observations, which he did, under the
direction of Dr. Gram. Dr. Hosack, then one of the leading
physicians of New York, a warm friend of Dr. Gray, censured
him for giving heed to such wild notions in medicine, and said
that if he should adopt any such ideas, he might be sure that
the profession would turn its back upon him; yet this did not
deter Dr. Gray. He became convinced of the truth of the prin-
ciples of Homoeopathy and adopted them in his practice. For
one year his friends and his practice almost entirely deserted
him. In 1829, Dr. A. D. Wilson became a second convert and
friend of Dr. Gray, and these two men stood then with Dr.
Gram alone in the homoeopathic profession. In 1832, Dr. Gray,
with that characteristic persistency and boldness which he al-
ways exhibited through his life, proposed the name of Samuel
Hahnemann for honorary membership of the New York Medical
Society, to which position he was elected. In literary matters
pertaining to Homœopathy, Dr. Gray was always an early and
active worker. In 1835, Gray and Hull began the first homoeo-
pathic journal of America, The American Journal of Homœ-
opathy. Four numbers only were issued when it was suspended
from poverty or want of funds on the part of the publisher-
from the same fact as the Homœopathic Examiner in 1839-when
four volumes were published. In 1835, the first homoeopathic
society in New York was established, at the instance of Dr.
Gray. The late Wm. Cullen Bryant was the first president of
this society, in which the laity joined with the profession. In
1844, Dr. Gray conceived, and by his executive ability organized
this American Institute of Homœopathy, and was its general
secretary for the first two years. With Dr. Hull's aid he added
Jahr's Manual and several other publications to the literature of
Homœopathy-works in which Dr. Gray's name did not appear-
but which were given to the world by his assistance. In 1850,
his address on "The Duty of the State in Relation to Homo-
opathy," was published. In 1870, as chairman of the Bureau
of Medical Education, he prepared a bill for the establishment
316
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of a Board of Examiners, which was passed by the State in 1872.
He died of senile gangrene in New York on June 5th, 1882,
aged 77 years and 8 months. Almost eighty years of life he
passed, and more than two-thirds of that were devoted to the
advancement and spread of the principles of medicine, which
cost him so much in the very beginning of his professional life.
E. M. KELLOGG, M. D.: I would like to add a few words of
tribute to the memory of Dr. Gray. One week ago yesterday I
was one of the large concourse of physicians and laymen who
attended his funeral services in the city of New York. This
large concourse was drawn together, not only on account of his
professional eminence, but on account of the many qualities which
had endeared him to hosts of patients and friends. Of late
years we have not heard so much of Dr. Gray on account of his
advancing age and his retirement from the active public duties
of the profession. But twenty to forty years ago, he was a
power in our school, and earnestly labored both by his pen and
his practice for its advancement. As Dr. Talbot has said, he
was the pioneer-the first American born homoeopathic physi-
cian. In later years he devoted himself almost entirely to his
private practice. He was remarkable, especially for his scholarly
attainments, being exceedingly fond of the classics and
thoroughly conversant with German, which he studied in middle
life, and of which he made himself a thorough master. It often
was a matter of pleasant surprise to me, in calling upon him,
for instance in the early evening, to find him reading some of
the old classic writers in the original Greek or Latin. In them
he seemed especially to delight; and he rightly felt as though
he had borne his share in the battle for medical liberty and
reform, and was entitled to that repose in the evening of his
life for which those labors had fitted him.and to which they had
entitled him. Of late years he was specially interested in the
cause of medical education. For many years he labored dili-
gently in our State societies with that object in view. He ob-
tained the realization of one of his ideas in the establishment of
a Board of Medical Examiners by the Regents of the Univesity
of the State of New York, with power to confer the degree of
M. D. His idea in which I fully sympathized with him, was
that the examining power ought to be dissociated from the
diploma conferring power, in order to elevate the standard of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
317
medical education. It is but a few weeks since I was in his
office discussing with him this subject, and the possibility of
getting some legislative enactment in order to further carry out
these views. I say this much, Mr. Chairman, out of my per-
sonal regard for, and my sincere admiration of, the man. I
would we had from New York some other members of the Insti-
tute who could more fully and thoroughly express the feelings
which we all experience in the loss of this our pioneer of
Homœopathy in America. (Cleave's Biography. Trans. Amer.
Inst. Hom., 1882. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 445.
N. Y. State
.Hom. Trans., 1863. N. E. Med. Gaz., Feb., 1871, vol. 17, p.
224. Amer. Hom. Obser., vol. 19, p. 298. U. S. Med. Inves.,
vol. 16, p. 92.
Hahn. Mon., vol. 17, p. 508. N. Y. Med.
Times, vol. 10, þ. 115.
N. Y. Hom. Soc. Trans., vol. 18, p. 253.
Amer. Hom't., vol. 8, p. 189.
GRIESSELICH, PHILIP WILHELM LUDWIG. Philip
Griesselich was born on March 8, 1804, in Sinsheim, Baden.
He was the son of Dr. Valentine Griesselich, who had distin-
guished himself as physician, obstetrician and also by his liter-
ary activity. His first education he received in the Institute of
Schwarz in Heidelberg, but at sixteen years of age he entered the
University there, and received his diploma as doctor of medicine,
surgeon and obstetrician in the year 1824. In the same year he
was appointed surgeon of the brigade of artillery in Karlsruhe
under the Archduke. While still a boy, he was fond of botany,
and had a collection of plants; even then he knew most of the
plants which grew wild around Heidelberg and in the Palatinate;
as a student he frequently was the refuge of the botanizing stu-
dents unable to designate the plants. Beginning in 1828, he
first made known in the Magazine for Pharmacy published by
Geiger, various articles respecting the flora of Baden; this
caused a dispute with the late Privy Counsellor Gruelin.
In common with Spenner and Schimper he labored in his
circle to counteract the tendency of splitting up and subdividing
the genera and species of plants, which tendency was at that
time misnamed "criticism.” These articles as well as criticisms
of botanical works Griesselich published first in the Magazine
for Pharmacy, but afterwards he revised and completed them and
published them as the first volume of his Kleine Botanische
318
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Schriften (Karlsruhe, J. Velter, 1836). This work contains
especially a statistic of the flora of Baden and the neighboring
regions. Later on he furnished some articles for the Botanische
Zeitschrift, in Regensburg, where he gave among other things a
description of a new species discovered by him in 1832.
Having in 1828 begun an investigation of Hahnemann's sys-
tem of medicine, he, in 1832, began also a practical application
of it, and defended its principles in "Sketches from the Portfolio
of a Traveling Homœopath" (Karlsruhe, Ch. Th. Groos, 1832).
But he gradually proceeded to disclose the errors of this system,
and the absurdities of its bigotted adherents' endeavoring not to
combine, but to put into a clear light that which was sterling in
the old and in the new dogmas. He at the same time scourged
the weak points both of the friends and the foes of the homoeo-
pathic system; this was his purpose in his "Fresco Paintings
from the Arcades of the Healing Art" (Karlsruhe, J. Velten,
1834-35, two pamphlets with vignettes). A polemical pamphlet
held in a light, sportive vein was denominated: "Homoeopathy
in the Shade of Common Sense," this was directed against Dr.
Haerlin, in Würtemberg (Karlsruhe, J. Velten, 1834). More
lengthy polemics were directed against two bitter opponents of
Homœopathy, Prof. Sachs, in Koenigsberg, and the Hannoverian
physician in ordinary, Dr. Stieglitz, Der Sachsenspiegel and Des
Sachsenspiegels audrer Theil (The Mirror of the Saxons and Its
Second Part). These were published by Chr. Th. Groos, in
Karlsruhe, 1835. So also he published a circular letter to Dr.
Eisenmann (the Man of Iron) entitled "Hahnemann and Eisen-
mann" (Karlsruhe, Ch. Th. Groos, 1836). He also compiled:
"A Complete Collection of the Transactions Concerning Hom-
œopathy in the Legislatures of Baden and Darmstadt" (Karls-
ruhe, J. Velten, 1834). He also in co-operation with several
colleagues published a "Critical Repertory of Homœopathic
Journalism." Four thick pamphlets (Leipzig, C. E. Kollmann,
1835-36).
Griesselich was the chief mover in the formation of the Hom-
œopathic Society in the Grand Duchy of Baden; this society in
time acquired greater dimensions, as men near and far joined it,
and especially by extending its limits beyond the narrow domain
of the Hahnemannian doctrine. It then laid aside its name of
"Homœopathic Society," and since 1840 is called the "Rhein-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
319
ische Verein fuer praktische Medizin, besonders fuer specifische
Heilkunde" (Society of the Rhine Valley for Practical Medicine
and Especially for a Specific Therapy). Simultaneously with
the establishment of this society Griesselich caused in 1833, the
publication of an organ of the society, Hygea. This organ be-
came the especial means by which one sided Homœopathy grad-
ually resumed its connection with general medicine, gaining an
historic foundation, and in its theory more light, and in its
practice more definiteness. Since 1834 many volumes appeared
(Karlsruhe, Chr. Th. Groos), and the Kritische Repertorium on
concluding its fourth number was united with it. From 1838-9
there appeared four more pamphlets by Griesselich, "Lectures
in Berlin concerning Faith and Superstition (Glaube und Aber-
glaube) in the Healing Art" (Karlsruhe, Ch. Th. Groos). An
edition in some respects changed appeared soon afterwards under
the title of "Demokritus Medicus."
Griesselich's time was fully occupied by his extensive practice
and his many literary labors, and though the Sanitary College
of Baden looked askance at him on account of his medical tend-
encies, he continued to enjoy the favor of high officers of state.
In the year 1847, he was appointed surgeon of the staff, and in
the following year he accompanied the troops of Baden which
marched to Holstein. Here he had the misfortune of being
thrown from his horse which shied at a wind-mill, and which
dragged its rider, whose feet were entangled in the stirrups, until
life was extinct.
The editor of the British Journal thus writes: We are grieved
to record the death of this distinguished individual, which oc-
curred whilst on the march with the army in Schleswig-Holstein.
He occupied the situation of staff surgeon to the 8th battalion,
and the immediate cause of his untimely fate was a fall from his
horse, on the 23d of August, whilst riding from Altona to Ham-
burg. The fall occasioned fracture of the skull in three places,
and he died on the 31st of August, never having recovered con-
sciousness. Dr. Griesselich early distinguished himself for his
bold opposition to some of the dogmas of our illustrious Master,
and might be considered the head of the homœopathic specific
school, as it is called in opposition to those who assume the title
of pure Hahnemannians. In consequence of the melancholy
death of its talented editor, the publisher of the Hygea has an-
320
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
nounced that the publication of that journal will be suspended
for a time.
Dr. Gustav Puhlmann says of him: He was born March 9,
1804, and died August 31, 1848. He lived at Carlsruhe in Baden.
He had expressed his interest in Homoeopathy in 1832 in a small
pamphlet, Sketches from the Portfolio of a Traveling Home-
opathist.' He was destined to uphold the right of free opinion
and investigation in Homoeopathy in opposition to the dogmas
of Hahnemann, and thus became a strong supporter of the young
homoeopathic school at Leipzig. He only recognized the spirit
of Homœopathy in the law of similars and in the advancement
of physiological experiments with medicines, while the
dynamism, psora theory, and potentization he declared to be
secondary, and one might either accept or reject them without
being an anti-Homoeopathist. He recognized as the chief source
of humbug in homoeopathic practice the want of sober un-
prejudiced observation, and the credulity of many homœopathic
experimenters. These he claimed were sufficient reasons why
Homœopathy must appear to most people as a caricature instead
of a plain convincing truth and that its progress would be com-
paratively slow. Therefore in his Hygea, a journal of medical
science, which first appeared in 1834 and was continued until
1848, he fought the one-sided dogmas with exasperation and
exposed the miserable unworthiness of the literary productions
of his enemies and of some advocates of true Homœopathy. He
not only warded off officious characters and combatted prejudice
and falsehood, but was also a good observer and understood how
to put facts in the place of opinions and to suppress lies by find-
ing out the truth. With all this he was not an eclectic as the
old Hahnemannians tried to make him out, nor did he grope in
the dark without plan orprinciple: The word "homoion" was
not a mere plaything for him, but he always proved himself to
be a thinking and sagacious physician, as is evident from his
original treatises in the Hygea. * * * He claimed that the
theory of potentization was not a necessary part of Homoeopathy
and that it retarded the progress of the latter. He charged
Hering with resurrecting Isopathy. Kleinert says: We regret
our inability to give information about the youth of Ludwig
Griesselich, the exceedingly genial physician and author, for
neither the Hygea nor the Allg. hom. Zeitung, nor his own
•
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
321
countrymen were able at the time of his sudden and lamented
death, to give a full necrological account. In all probability he
was born towards the close of the 18th century at Carlsruhe, the
child of parents in comfortable circumstances, and must have
enjoyed an excellent, exemplary training, for in all his writings
he not only displays profoundly rooted humane convictions, but
his whole bearing, his versatility, and his distinguished mili-
tary career tend to give proof of it. It was in the year 1831 when
he drew toward the circle of Hahnemann's followers by the
publication of a sketch of the homeopathic school in Baden. He
must have been known to some of them, for although his
name does not appear in the list of members of that day, there
is in it a reference in which he is mentioned as a regimental sur-
geon in the army of Baden and as a man long known to the
scientific world as a distinguished botanist.
From that time on we see him constantly, until his death, in
the field of controversy, holding, particularly from the year 1836,
the most conspicuous place in the ranks of the opposition. Up
to that time his pen had produced: "Sketches from the Port-
folio of a Travelling Homoeopathist," which furnished a brief
critique of the most popular homoeopathic physicians of the day,
administering an unmerited chastisement to the profession at
Leipzig, and indulging in the most enthusiastic praise of Hahne-
mann, a partisan view which was to undergo the most remarkable
change in the course of time. 2d. Complete collection of the
discussions and official acts of Baden and Darmstadt bearing
upon the practice of Homoeopathy. 3d. "Critical Repertory of
Homœopathic Journalism." 4th. A number of striking replies.
to several bold attacks upon Homœopathy, as for instance, to the
one made by Dr. Eisenmann, of Munich; Sachs, of Konigsberg;
Stieglitz, of Hanover.
G
Finally, in 1834, in connection with Drs. Kramer, Wich and
Weber he founded the Hygea, a journal which uncompromis-
ingly attacked the deficiencies, weaknesses and folly of several
phases of homoeopathic teaching, and which insisted more es-
pecially upon laying particular stress upon a more exact diag-
nosis and upon pathological anatomy. Unfortunately the Hygea
cultivated such vigor of expression that it not unfrequently
bordered upon the offensive, giving rise to many a bitter contro-
versy even with the most peaceful men, for not all took matters
322
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
so quietly as did Hahnemann himself, whom, in 1835, he had pro-
nounced an idiot and old bag of wind, and whose methods he
declared bad, although not as bad as the old.
In the year 1848, and almost at the very time when the news
of his sad death was received, there appeared his hand-book:
"A Contribution to the Science of the Homoeopathic or Specific
(a term which he preferred) Art of Healing," in which he fur-
nishes to practitioners and beginners an exhaustive introduction
to Homœopathy, an introduction which, as he says, he at one
time keenly missed in the "Organon."
Organon." He also attempted in
this work to show that the doctrine of the "Homoion" was
based upon physiological and pathological facts, a teaching which
several of its adherents had represented as unimportant, thus
burdening Homœopathy with the reproach that it lacked in
scientific value and in depth. To himself it was not reserved to
witness the universal recognition which this book received. On
the 23d day of August, 1848, he met with a serious accident. As
acting surgeon general of the 8th German Army Corps he was
quartered at Altona, with the staff of his own brigade. Riding
from Altona to Hamburg his horse became frightened, threw him,
and dragged him in the stirrup for a considerable distance. In
spite of immediate attention and the best of care his life could not
be saved; three fractures were found at the base of the cranium,
and he died, after intense suffering, on August 31st.
cance.
Lorbacher, in vol. 33 of the British Journal, says of Griesselich:
Ludwig Griesselich, a highly gifted man, of comprehensive
scientific education and keen intellect, with all his South Ger-
man humor full of striking and often wounding wit and satire,
embraced Homoeopathy with his characteristic fiery zeal. He
was convinced of its truth as well as of its reformatory signifi-
But that it must be received as something utterly new
and strange was not evident to him; and the utter abandonment
of the old medicine, the sometimes paradoxically sounding an-
nouncements of Hahnemann, the doctrines of the dose and the
preparation of medicine which bid defiance to all previous views,
brought him shortly in antagonism with Hahnemann and his
adherents. His inconsiderate and often gross attacks upon
Hahnemann and other honored Homœopaths made him many
enemies. With his keen criticism, practiced upon friends as
well as enemies, he at once sought to rid Homoeopathy of all
OF HOMEOPATHY,
323
that he considered mystical, obscure, superfluous ballast; not
considering that sometimes, in emptying the bath, he spilt the
baby too!
He wished to tackle Homœopathy on to the specific medicines
of the old school, understanding the term specific in the more
comprehensive yet more precise sense it had acquired by the
discovery of the homoeopathic principle and the proving of drugs
(Hahnemann, it will be remembered, at first only spoke of
specific medicines); to present Homoeopathy to the world as
specific, but rational specific treatment, for which reason he
gave the title of "
organ of rational specific treatment " to the
Hygea, a journal he founded in conjunction with Cramer and
Weber. He hoped thus to bridge over the chasm that separated
the old and new schools. That this procured him little thanks
from either, and entangled him in endless paper wars, is surely
no wonder. It had not occurred to him that to give up infini-
tesimals and strict individualization as necessary consequences of
Hahnemann's law would be generally considered as a surrender
of Homoeopathy itself, and would lead to apprehension of a
relapse into the old routine; a result which too truly followed
in the case of some of his followers, especially of Professor
Werber, of Freiburg. For all that, Homoeopathy is much in-
debted to Griesselich; for, at the light of his torch many fan-
tastic ideas fled like spectres which had been flitting in the
heads of certain Homœopaths, and made it clear to all the
thinkers amongst them that Homœopathy, if it is to have a
future, must not detach itself from the foundations of general
medical science; and that unproved hypotheses and aphorisms.
announced with an air of infallibility were not to decide on a
science so exact as medicine, but strictly philosophical experi-
ments. He was faithfully supported in the battle by his two
friends, Schrön and the talented and learned Arnold, of Heidel-
berg, who has left us a brilliant testimony in his work, "The
Idiopathic Method of Cure.'
""
The zeal and industry of Griesselich and his adherents are
proved by many theoretic as well as practical articles in the
Hygea. Griesselich himself, besides many lesser works of a
satirical cast, has bequeathed us a precious legacy in a work
published shortly before his premature and lamented death, viz.,
"The Evolutional History of Homoeopathy," in which, quite
324
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
contrary to his practice at other times, he calmly and objectively
collects the results of the discussions on the various homœo-
pathic dogmas and sums up their value. On this work, as well
as the Hygea, Homœopathy can look back with pride. They
will be a rich mine to any one who wishes for more than a
merely superficial acquaintance with Homœopathy.
REPORTS OF THE ILLNESS AND POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION OF
DR. GRIESSELICH.
Translated by Dr. De Gersdorf.
It being impossible for us to procure a full obituary of Dr.
Griesselich, we give the little which a medical journal (Mittheil-
ungen des badischan ärztlichen Vereins. Karlsruhe, 30 Sept., No.
18) has stated. In order to gratify the numerous friends of Dr.
G-
we publish what information we have been able to
acquire from medical communications, with regard to the con-
sequences of his unhappy accident, together with a report of the
dissection.
Griesselich fell from his horse, on the 23d of August while
riding from Altona, where he was quartered with the staff of the
Badish brigade. He was taken up senseless, and after being
bled, carried to the Freemason Hospital in Hamburg.
Surgeon Kussmaul watched with him during the first night.
Chief physician, Wallerstein, of the fourth Badish regiment, who
arrived the day after in Altona, spent the second night with him,
and described the state he was then in, in a letter, dated Aug.
25th.
"There is no wound visible; over the right temporal bone, the
skin is swollen, and on the corresponding mastoid process there
is a blue ecchymosis; blood is flowing from the right ear. Yes-
terday the jaws were entirely locked, and it was not possible to
make the patient take anything. The pupils were dilated, but
not immovable. He opened his eyes last night for the first time.
On my calling him by name, he nodded his head, and when I
took up his hand he pressed mine. During the night he was in
a slumber; towards morning he awoke and looked at me; I gave
him to drink, and he swallowed for the first time. The pulse is
still very small, but a little more active; his water passed from
him in bed; he frequently moves his hands towards his head.
This morning he uttered the first word spoken since his fall.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
325
On my asking him in a loud voice how he did, he answered:
"Oh, God!"
The further reports are from the attending physician, Dr. Beer,
physician of the garrison and the Freemason hospital in Ham-
burg. Dr. Heine, from Celle, physician of the Hannoverian
brigade, and head of the military hospitals in Altona, consulted
with him.
On the 24th of August, at eight o'clock in the evening, we
(Drs. Beer and Wallerstein) resolved, by way of trial, to remove
for a time the ice bandages, the pulse having abated after the ap-
plication of six leeches behind the left ear, and being small and
soft; the skin was also moderately warm, not hot. Two and a
half hours afterwards we observed a striking change. The pulse
became stronger, the skin somewhat warmer, and the functions
of the brain seemed to be less obstructed. He opened both eyes
(even the left, on which a ptosis palpebræ seemed to have settled,)
more widely than before, especially when Dr. W. shouted his
name into his right ear; he also showed, by a pleasant smile, that
he understood what was said. The ensuing night he spent with-
out sleep, it is true, but calmly. He no longer groaned, as he
had done during the first two days, nor pressed his head with
his hands, but he did not speak, and could not put out his tongue,
except with difficulty. He swallowed easily, but only a little at
a time, and nothing but liquids. This state continued until
Saturday, the 26th of August. The pulse then became stronger,
the brain more free; and he seemed to distinguish the faces of
his acquaintances, at whom he looked with a pleasant expression
of countenance. He did not appear to suffer any pain. A gentle
cathartic having no effect, a slightly acidified injection was ad-
ministered, after which he passed a considerable quantity of con-
sistent fæces. During the operation he made some exertions to
assist it, and raised himself in the bed by his own strength. He
took, in the morning, a cup of tea with a little biscuit; and, at
noon, some spoonfuls of flour-soup; water-gruel, with herbs,
which was offered to him, he refused. Towards five o'clock in
the afternoon, after a quick motion of the head from left to right,
sudden spasms appeared; at first confined to the left side of the
face, but soon after extending to the muscles of the upper part
of the body. These attacks were repeated four times, at short
intervals, and brought on a general warm perspiration. I pre-
-
326
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
scribed, every three hours, Calomel et rad. Rhei sing. gr. iv.
During Sunday, the 26th of August, there was no change; the
spasms did not occur; he had one pappy, greenish evacuation
from the bowels into the bed-pan.
Early on Monday morning, at 2:30 o'clock, the spasms before-
mentioned occurred again four times. The paroxysms were
shorter and the intermissions longer. At 9:30 o'clock he seemed
to have more consciousness. He put out his tongue more readily
and spoke, the first time, the words "to day." He motioned
with his hand to his head, and seemed to intimate that he had a
throbbing, whirling sensation in it. During the day he did
tolerably well; rose by his own efforts, was cheerful, and pressed
my hand frequently. He took a little tea and light biscuit and
some calf's foot jelly. The following night he slept but little;
towards morning of the 27th of August the spasmodic attacks
became frequent and resulted in paralysis of the right side. A
blister was applied upon the neck; every three hours, Ungt.
hydrargyr. cin. 3 ß. was rubbed into the left side of the head,
and Infus. Flor. Arnica, at first with Senna, and after some stools
had followed, with Senega was given internally.
Wednesday, the 30th of August. In the night, during which
he had slept in the whole only an hour and a half, the spasms
had come on more frequently, though they were of shorter dura-
tion. While they were upon him be bent the left arm and raised
it; the left leg remained motionless. The pulse was then con-
tracted and small; but after the attack it was rather large and
soft. He brought his tongue straight forward to the teeth; it was
little coated and pale; the gums were clean and without offensive
odor. The urine had been passed several times unconsciously
in the bed, and so had once a thin, pappy discharge from the
bowels. Below the left eye, in which the vessels of the con-
junctiva were enlarged, there were slight livid ecchymoses ex-
tending up to the temple. During the intermissions, which
now became shorter, he seemed to feel more exhausted, but still
retained his pleasant expression of countenance. After a night,
disturbed by many spasms, paralysis of the lungs came on in the
morning of the 31st of August, which caused death at one and
a half o'clock in the afternoon.
Post-mortem examination, on the 1st of September, at 2 o'clock,
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
327
P.M., in the presence of several Hamburg and Altona physicians,
Dr. Frisoni, of Stuttgart, and Dr. Beer.
The corpse was little emaciated. No external wound was visi-
ble, except a very small scratch on the skin of the vertex. Be-
neath the hairy scalp there was everywhere bloody extravasation,
also, under the left eye, and in the left temporal region; more
still behind the right ear, and most of all under the left ear, from
which it descended to the middle of the neck, of a very dark,
almost black color.
Beneath the galea aponeurotica there was
vasated blood, especially on the left side.
sions of the dura mater. The internal surface of the bones
showed deep impressiones digitata. On the left side downwards
from the os temporale, dark blood, covering a surface as large as
an infant's hand, was found adhering closely to the bone. It
was rough to the touch, like coarse leather. The veins of the
dura mater were distended with dark blood, and in detaching it,
almost two spoonfuls of blood, of the thickness of syrup or tar
ran out, which had accumulated especially on the left side. The
membrane did not adhere to the brain, which had on the surface
a normal consistence. The pia mater was clear and not thick-
ened. There was an extravasation of thick blood in some of the
sulci. The upper convolutions of the brain, showed many bloody
points, but the lower were free from them, and the medullary
substance was of a beautiful white color near the ventricles.
The right ventricle was filled with clear water, but was not dis-
tended. The left was empty, probably because of the careless
separation of the septum. The plexus choroideus were natural.
A transverse section of the left anterior lobe of the brain dis-
covered near the outside two yellowish round spots.
The an-
terior was of the size of half a small walnut, and was separated
from the other, smaller and posterior, by sound substance a few
lines in breadth. This spot was surrounded by a narrow, dark-
red, almost brownish line, and changed below into coagulated
blood, which had settled in great quantity on the pars petrosa.
The rest of the brain, including the cerebellum, showed nothing
un'isual. From the canal of the spinal column there flowed a
considerable quantity of clear serum.
After removing the brain the following three fissures were
visible:
a good deal of extra-
There were no adhe-
-
328
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1. In the left temporal bone, a fracture went through the
meat. auditor. extern, and through the whole pars petrosa to the
canalis caroticus, at which spot a small piece of the bone
which forms the canal was detached and easily movable. Up-
wards and backwards the fractures extended to the os verticis,
and ended near the middle of the sutura lambdoidea. This latter
was burst open in its whole extent, so that the bony processes of
the occiput projected over the ossa verticis, and you could put the
ends of your nails under them.
2. On the right side a fracture went from the foramen jugulare
upwards to the middle of the os vertici, and ended there in a
very thin projecting splinter, three lines in length, and one in
breadth.
3. Directly opposite to the origin of the second fracture, the
third extended from the foramen jugulare backwards in the os
occipitis, about two and a half to three inches in length, and
ended in the bone, where there was extravasated blood between
the lamellæ. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 7, p. 129, vol. 33, p. 611.
World's Con., vol. 2, pp. 25, 32, 34. Kleinert, pp. 74, 164, 168.
Quarterly Hom. Jour., Boston, vol. 1, p. 267. Allg. hom. Zeit.,
vol. 35, pp. 253. 302; vol. 37, p. 273. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 139, 268,
478, 368; vol. 2, pp. 123, 190, &c. Med. Coun., vol. 11, p. 456.)
GROSS, G. W. Dr. Roth in the British Journal says: Dr.
Gross having adopted Korsakoff's notion, infected sugar globules
with blood power by adding to them one globule imbibed with a
dilution of his own blood, and published two cases of congestion
which he cured with this wonderful medicine.—Archiv. für Hom.
Heilkunst, edited by Stapf, 1834, vol. xiv, 2, p. 50.
The following tale of Dr. S. W. Gross' preparation of potencies
of his own blood, and cure by globules infected with this blood-
power, is told in his own words: Having by chance been
slightly wounded, I took as much blood as was sufficient to
moisten one globule, which I mixed afterwards with 10,000
other globules, and shook them in a well-corked bottle during
fifteen minutes. I took then one globule out of this bottle,
mixed it with other 10,000 globules, placed in a second bottle,
and shook them again for fifteen minutes.
"Of this second potency I gave a few globules to a lady suffer-
ing from congestion to the head and chest, and prescribed, when-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
329
ever a similar attack should occur, two globules to be placed on
her tongue. She did it, and felt soon the most beneficial effect."
Second case: A young man suffered from a serious disease
of the chest and frequent blood expectoration, which amounted
several times to a real hæmorrhage; besides several other medi-
cines for the relief of his principal complaint, I gave him also a
few globules of the same preparation (potency of blood power),
and prescribed that they should be taken only in case the con-
gestion should be very intense and the expectoration of blood
occur."
Here follows a long report of the patient, giving a
description of a severe state of congestion to the head and chest,
with all the accompanying symptoms; further, that the other
medicines having no effect, and his pains being intense and un-
bearable, the excretion of blood while coughing lasting for two
days, he took then four globules at 3 P. M. When he went to
bed, half an hour later, profuse perspiration of the head followed,
and an hour later he felt much better. The following day the
other symptoms also disappeared, and he then felt quite well.
Dr. Gross adds that this blood potency was also very beneficial
in a similar but less severe attack a few months later. The
curative power was felt in each case within the shortest time.
Roth says: Other tales of the miracles performed by Dr. Gross
(the eminent discoverer of homoeopathic mare's nests) with Jen-
ichen's Secret Preparations were first published in the Neues
Archiv für Hom. Heilkunst (vol. i, 3, p. 35, 1844) under the title
of "My Latest Experience in Homoeopathic Practice." Al-
though these cases have been severely criticised by Dr. Böhm,
of Vienna, in German, by Dr. Roth, of Paris, in French, and by
Dr. Dudgeon in English homoeopathic journals, and notwith-
standing Böhm proved that none of Gross' cures could be ascribed
to high potencies, the error, which is (according to Rummel)
"as infectious as a catarrh," was propagated in a much greater
ratio than of "one fool makes ten." (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 30,
p. 73. Dudgeon's Lect. on Hom'y. See also Provers )
GROSSI. In Quin's list of 1834, Grossi is put down as a
homoeopathic practitioner of Naples, Italy.
GRUNER, JULIUS. Dr. Gruner was one of the contribu-
tors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was
330
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
practicing at Iglau, in Moravia. His name is on the Quin list
of 1834.
GUBITZ. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Dresden, Saxony. The name appears on the Zeitung and Quin
lists of 1832 and 1834.
GUEYRARD, CLAUDIUS. Leipzig, June 1, 1860, Dr.
Claudius Gueyrard, of Paris, is dead. A French journal con-
tains the following written by Dr. A. Teste: He was born at
Tourves, a small town in Var, on September 16, 1811.
He was
son and nephew of physicians and was from his infancy dedi-
cated to the medical art. His father was physician in chief in
a military hospital at Lyons, and his eldest brother assistant
physician. There he commenced his medical studies. He had
scarcely acquired the first principles of the healing art when the
insurrection of 1831 occurred. A year of idleness and misery
had incited the workman to the supreme cry. "Bullets or bread!''
Lyons presented a terrible spectacle; the National guard were
defeated and were driven from the city. The Hotel de Ville had
been transformed into a hospital which was filled with wounded
soldiers, and they had no guard but the medical students in
charge of the hospital. Gueyrard was of their number, and to
him was given the dangerous duty of negotiating with the mob.
He called for their chief and declared to him that the gates of
the Hotel de Ville should not be open without his formal promise
that the wounded should be respected; this promise was kept to
the letter.
Three years later, in Dec., 1834, Gueyrard went to Paris to
continue his medical studies under the tuition of his eldest
brother, who was one of the founders of the first Societie Galli-
cane. Gueyrard's convictions were already fixed on the doctrine
of Hahnemann. His inaugural thesis at the time of his gradua-
tion, Dec. 22, 1837, was: "Some reflections relative to thera-
peutics from a homeopathic standpoint." A diploma did not
bring him prosperity. He was the physician of the poor and in
sympathy with their wants. For a time he suffered with re-
ligious melancholy with hallucinations and headache. He re-
covered from this and retained his mind to the last. The last
attack was in July, 1839, at which time Drs. Gabalda and Teste
attended him. About the Ist of September his brother, Henri,
OF HOMEOPATHY.
331
took him to Fleche, where he became the guest of Chamaillard,
and where he died on November 25, 1839, from a pulmonary af-
fection. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 60, p. 184. Bull. de la Soc. Med.
Hom. de France, vol. 1, p. 58.)
GUIDI, SEBASTIEN GAETEN-SALVADOR DES. Was
a very prominent physician of France. In the British Journal
appears the following: We have just received notice of the death
of the venerable Count Des Guidi who, in 1830, introduced
Homœopathy into France, and by his letter to the French
physicians, published in 1832, so powerfully contributed to the
spread of a knowledge of the doctrines of Hahnemann among
the medical men of France. Count Des Guidi was converted to
Homœopathy in 1828, in Naples, by Dr. De Romani, who along
with Dr. De Horatiis, was at that time in full practice as a
homoeopathic physician at Naples. Dr. Quin gives the name
in the list of 1834 as at Lyons.
In the World's Convention Transactions: In 1828 Count Des
Guidi, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Science, and Inspector of the
University at Lyons was in Naples. Unsuccessful in arresting
the supposed fatal malady of his wife, who accompanied him to
get the benefit of the baths of Pozzuoli, he was induced to con-
sult Dr. De Romani, who was enjoying at Naples a great
reputation as a homœopathic physician. The cure of his wife
by De Romani's treatment, produced a profound impression
on Count Des Guidi and induced him to study the doctrines of
Hahnemann, and under the direction of Drs. De Romani and De
Horatiis, he followed assiduously their homeopathic clinic in
the Hospital of the Trinity. In 1830, at the age of sixty-three
years, Dr. Des Guidi returned to Lyons and devoted himself to
the practice of Homœopathy, whose benefits he proclaimed aloud,
and whose scientific value he demonstrated a little later in that
magnificent letter to the physicians of France, which has been
translated into all languages and which contains a luminous and
eloquent exposition of the new medical doctrine.
In the Monthly Hom. Review is a quotation from the Daily
Telegraph (London) June 22, 1863, which is an interesting col-
lection of blunders: The death of Count S. G. S. M. Dei Guidi
is reported to-day at Lyons. The Count was in his 94th year
and was the father of Homoeopathy, having converted Hahne-
332
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
mann from the heresy of Allopathy. Count Dei Guidi had pre-
viously been a Neapolitan conspirator against Queen Caroline
(in 1799), a prisoner, exile, Professsor of Mathematics, Inspector
of the University of Grenoble, a Doctor of Medicine, and finally
of anti-medicine and has died a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor,
an odd career extending over nearly a century, and that century
the most important in the history of France.
Dr. Dunham thus mentions him: Died, May 27, 1863, at
Lyons, France, in the 94th year of his age, Dr. Des Guidi, the
first and the oldest homoeopathic practitioner in France. Count
Des Guidi, Knight of the Legion of Honor, Doctor of Philosophy
and Medicine, was born at Caserta in Naples. In 1799 being a
liberal in politics, he was banished and his property was con-
fiscated. While acting as general in the revolutionary army
against the Government of Queen Caroline, he was taken
prisoner and would have been shot but for the interposition of
the English. He took refuge in France, where turning to
account the studies and acquisitions of his youth, he gained in
1801, by public competition the position of Professor of Mathe-
matics in the University of Lyons and Marseilles. In 1820 he
received the full degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Uni-
versity of Strasburg.
In 1828 Count Des Guidi accompanied his wife, who had a
so-called incurable disease, to the baths of Pozzuoli. Here he
met Dr. De Romani, of Naples, through whose care the Countess
Des Guidi was soon restored to health. This remarkable suc-
cess of the new method turned Dr. Des Guidi's attention to
Homœopathy, which he faithfully studied under the guidance of
Drs. De Romani and De Horatiis, and afterwards under the coun-
sels of Hahnemann himself. In 1830 he returned to France,
where he introduced Homœopathy and practiced it till his death.
Dr. Des Guidi's "Letter to the Physicians of France," was
one of the first books published in the United States upon
Homœopathy. In 1834 William Canning translated it from the
French and it was published in New York.
The following is quoted from the Zeitung:
We excerpt the following from a Necrology written by Dr.
Gallavardin of Lyons, and published in the July number of
the Art Medical, concerning a man whose decease will be gen-
erally lamented also by his colleagues in our fatherland.
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
333
On the 27th of May, 1863, died at Lyons, in the 94th year of
his age, Sebastian Gaetan Salvador Maxime Count Des Guidi,
Knight of the Legion of Honor and of the Tuscan Order of St.
Stephan, formerly Professor of Mathematics at the College of
Privas, Lyons and Marseilles, a quondam Inspector of the Uni-
versities at Grenoble and Lyons, Doctor of Philosophy and
Medicine, the first and oldest Homœopath of France.
He was born in the Castle Guardia near Caserta in Naples, on
the 5th of August, 1769. Till the year 1799, Des Guidi re-
mained in his native land, but then on account of his liberal
views he was sent into exile and his estates were confiscated.
Being taken prisioner while acting as general of the revolu-
tionary army which made war on the Government of Queen
Caroline, he would certainly have lost his life, if the English
had not interfered in his behalf.
He then fled to France, where he had no other means of sub-
sistence but such as were afforded by the solid education he had
enjoyed in his youth and which he endeavored to put to use by
becoming a public instructor. In this he succeeded, for in the
competitive examination of 1801, he was appointed Professor of
Mathematics and in 1803 also Professor of Physics at the College
of Privas; in 1810 he became Professor of Special Mathematics
at the College in Lyons; in 1813 he became Inspector of the Uni-
versity at Grenoble, and 1819 (till 1834), Inspector of the Uni-
versity of Lyons. But in spite of his manifold occupations this
industrious man found time to acquire (on the 12th of February,
1819), the diploma of Doctor of Philosophy and (on the 21st of
October, 1820), the title of Doctor of Medicine at the University
of Strasburg.
In the year 1828 Count Des Guidi accompanied his wife (who
is now 90 years of age), who had been suffering for twenty
years of a malady thought incurable, to the springs of Pozzuoli,
near Naples. The visit was not followed by any curative effects,
but Des Guidi had the good fortune of seeing his wife restored
by the celebrated Neapolitan Homœopath De Romani.
remarkable cure determined him to study the new curative
method, and he began his studies in the clinique of the doctors,
De Horatüs and De Romani, and completed them later on
through his intimate relations with Hahnemann. In 1830 he
returned to France, and introduced Homoeopathy there and
334
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
practiced it at Lyons till his death. What was most remarkable
in his long life, extended for almost a century, was his mental
vigor and bodily health which remained to the last. His activity
and his continual efforts toward culture even in an advanced age
are sufficiently manifest from the above data of his life.*
For the diffusion of Homœopathy he labored through his
writings, among which his open "Letter to French Physicians"
(also translated into German), may be especially mentioned, but
more still by his actions; he was e. g. one of the founders of the
homoeopathic hospitals in Paris and in Geneva. In the begin-
ning of his homeopathic career, he, in Geneva cured two
patients who had been treated in vain for two years by Dr. Pierre
Dufresne. The latter, surprised by these sudden cures, now
studied Homœopathy and was soon convinced of its excellence, so
that he became one of the most zealous followers of Hahnemann,
and in common with Dr. Peschier founded the first French ho-
mœopathic journal: Bibliothique hom. de Geneva (1832-1844).
Later on his son, Ed. Dufresne, settled in Geneva, where he be-
came physician in the hospital of Plain-Palais, which since that
time (1845) has become a homeopathic hospital. Ed. Dufresne
it was in turn, who induced his teacher. Tessier, to study
Homœopathy; what Tessier has accomplished is known to all.
In this way Des Guidi contributed directly and indirectly to the
diffusion of Hahnemann's curative method. In the year 1830
he was the only Homoeopath in France. In the year 1832 there
were twenty-five; in 1840 there were fifty; in 1850, 200; in 1863,
500. Happy old man, who without having had any children,
left behind him so numerous a progeny. And here we may be
permitted to remark to our opponents that Homœopathy-this
dreamy German vision, which, as they say, is only fit for raving
sick people and physicians of exalted sensibilities-was intro-
duced into France by a professor of the exact sciences.
On the 29th of May the funeral procession of Count Des Guidi
moved through the streets of Lyons, followed by a great con-
course of mourners. A company of infantry paid the last honors
to the Knight of the Legion of Honor. The pall-bearers were
M. de la Saussay, Rector of the Academy of Lyons; M. Vivien,
* How vigorous he must have been even a few years back is manifest
from his words and his petition in favor of Homœopathy directed to
Napoleon III at his visit to Lyons. (See Allg. hom. Z., vol. 61, p. 16).
OF HOMEOPATHY.
335
the Inspector of the same Academy, and the practicing physi-
cians, Dr. Noacksen, and Dr. Servan. In silence and without a
word of love and gratitude from his colleagues, the body was
committed to the grave, which is the termination of so long and
so active a life. Peace to his ashes! (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol.
21, p. 517.
World's Con., vol. 2, pp. 151, 1071. Rapou, vol. 1,
pp. 141, 150. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 67, pp. 23, 24. Mo. Hom.
Rev., vol. 7, p. 436. Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 4, p. 144. Rev. hom.
Belge., vol. 3, p. 249. Everest's Pop. View of Hom., N. Y.,
1842, p. 126.)
GUISAN. Quin in his list of 1834, locates Guisan as practic-
ing Homœopathy at Vevey, Switzerland.
GUENTHER, FREDERICK AUGUST. Leipzig, May 19,
1865, F. A. Guenther, of Langensalza, is dead. According to
the Zeitung list of 1832, Guenther was then practicing at Doebeln,
Saxony. Quin locates him at the same place in 1834. (Allg.
hom. Zeit., vol. 59, p. 16; vol. 70, p. 168. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik,
vol. 14, p. 86. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 424, etc. Kleinert, 275.)
GUENTHER. Leipzig, July 11, 1859, the homoeopathic
physician Guenther in Obermitzschka, near Wurzen, in Saxony,
is dead. He was a true friend and promoter of Homœopathy.
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 59, p. 16.)
HANDT. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at
Plauen, Saxony. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832, and
the Quin list of 1834.
HANUSCH. The Zeitung and Quin lists places him at
Tischnowitz in 1832-4.
HARTMANN. In the Zeitung for 1832, among the list of
physicians then practicing Homœopathy, is the name of Hart-
mann, of Arnstadt. This is not the Franz Hartmann, Hahne-
mann's pupil. Quin also gives the two Hartmann's names.
HARTUNG, J. C. Mention is made of Dr. Hartung being
located in Salzburg, in Austria, in 1833. He was one of the
provers for the "Materia Medica Pura."
His name appears in
the Zeitung list of 1832, at which time he was a regimental phy-
sician at Salzburg. His chief cure, and one by which he is to
336
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
be remembered, is the cure of Field Marshal Radetzky of a malig-
nant tumor of the eye, which had been pronounced incurable by
the allopathic surgeons. This was in 1840. In 1856 this cure
having been called into question by an allopathic journal, Count
Radetzky over his own signature said: "Having learned that
there are malicious doubts in circulation as to the efficacy of
Homœopathy, I hereby declare that the disease of my eye in
1841, was cured exclusively by the homoeopathic treatment of
my staff physician, Dr. Hartung, now deceased.
"RADETZKY, M. P.
"Verona, Dec. 13, 1856."
In 1841, Dr. Hartung published in the Zeitung an account of
this cure, and a translation may be found in the British Journal
of Homœopathy, vol. I, p. 147.
Dr. Hartung at one time lived at Milan. He died in 1853.
After the cure of Radetzky, Hartung was so annoyed by the
jealousies of the allopathic school that he quitted Milan and
established himself at Parma, leaving his practice in the hands
of his colleague Dr. Taubes, a regimental physician. (Rapou,
vol. 1, p. 196 World's Con., vol. 2, 206. Brit. Jour. Hom.,
vol. 1, p. 147; vol. 12, p. 168.)
HASSLOECHER, LUDWIG. Was born in Diedesfeld,
near Neustadt, in 1785. His parents were poor peasants; his
boyhood was spent in gathering fagots in the neighboring wood,
and picking up what instruction he could at a charity school.
An old priest in the neighborhood took notice of him with the
view of bringing him up for the church. This plan, however,
was not carried out, for he afterwards made the acquaintance of
Dr. Hersch, employed at the Bruchsal Hospital, who persuaded
him to adopt medicine as his profession, and offered to give him
the necessary instruction. This offer he eagerly embraced, and
rapidly made great progress in his medical studies, especially in
midwifery. The little he made at first by his profession he sent
to his poor parents, so that he had not enough to buy the books
required for study. He used to sit up at night and write copies
of them. He took his degree at Mainz in 1816. He commenced
practice after this at his native village, where he married his
first wife, who died after seven years. In 1819 he received an
appointment as physician accoucheur at Landau, where he
married his second wife. In 1831 he was converted to Homo-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
337
opathy by Dr. Griesselich, and after this continued to enjoy a
large practice. In 1847 he gave up his practice and went to live
with his son, who was in business in Lyons. Here he remained
three years. By his son's speculations he lost all his money,
whereupon he returned to Landau, and commenced practice
again, which he continued until laid up by his final illness. He
enjoyed a great reputation as an accoucheur, and his advice and
assistance were sought by patients and by physicians from far
and near.
He had a wonderful skill in all that related to that
branch of the art of medicine. He was a man of a highly phil-
anthropic disposition, unselfish in the extreme, a fond husband,
an excellent father and a true friend. (Brit. Jour. Hom.. vol. 15,
p. 325. Neue Zeit. f. Hom., vol. 2, p. 4.)
HAUBOLD, CARL Dr. Carroll Dunham, writing in Sep-
tember, 1867, in the American Homopathic Review, says: We
have to lament the decease of a colleague whose name has been
for many years associated with those which have been most uni-
versally respected in our school. Dr. Carl Haubold, of Leipzig,
died June 8th, 1862. He graduated with distinguished honors
in the University of Leipzig in 1821, and soon attained a large
and lucrative practice, being assisted thereto by the prominent
position of his father's family in the community. By the influ-
ence of Drs. Moritz Muller, Hartmann and Franz he was in-
duced to investigate Homoeopathy, and, as always happens
where such investigations are undertaken in an honest and docile
spirit, he soon became an enthusiastic adherent of the Hahne-
mannian system.
His abilities and acquirements gave him soon a prominent
position among the Homœopathists, and his genial disposition,
his moderation and courtesy, and his strict sense of justice en-
abled him to preserve a middle position between the two oppos-
ing parties into which Hahnemann's early friends most unfor-
tunately divided, and in 1833 he was the means of effecting a
reconcilliation between Hahnemann and those of his pupils who
had so deeply offended him. Dr. Haubold continued in the
active practice of his profession until the beginning of the year
1861, when he began to feel the effects of the malady to which
he finally succumbed. (Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 3, p. 144. See also
Provers.)
338
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
HAUGK. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at An-
naberg, Saxony. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 he was
then located there. Quin also mentions him.
HAUPTMANN. Dr. Hauptmann, of Steckna, is dead. (A.
H. Z., June, 1860, vol. 60, p. 192.) He practiced in Zasmuk in
Bohemia. His name appears in the Zeitung list of 1832, and
among the contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829.
(Allg. hom. Zeit, vol. 60, p. 192.)
HAYSER. The name is in the Zeitung list of 1832 as mili-
tary physician in Darmstadt. Quin, in his list of 1834, calls
him Legionis Medicus.
HEILMANN. Was a pioneer homoeopathic physician in
Silesia. The Zeitung list locates him in Sora in 1832. Quin also,
in his list of 1834, locates him in Sora.
HELBIG, CARL GOTTLOB. According to the Zeitung
list of 1832 he was then located in Dresden. Quin also mentions
the name. The British Journal for April, 1870, says: Dr. Helbig
is well-known as the prover of Nux moschata and the author of
Several chemical works on Homœopathy, which have been
noticed in these columns. He was a man of great learning and
was famous for the power with which he wielded his pen in the
defense of Homœopathy in its early days. He died at an ad-
vanced age in Dresden, on the 13th of last November (1869).
We observe that the death of this distinguished Homœopathist
has prompted a meeting in Philadelphia, under the auspices of
Dr. Constantine Hering, to evoke a number of resolutions ex-
pressive of the esteem felt by Homoeopathists of all countries for
Dr. Helbig and of the loss Homœopathy has sustained by his
death.
Rapou says that the homoeopathic doctors, Schwartz and
Helbig, are well known by a publication of a journal of medicine
very original, called Heraclites. Dr. Helbig is a very eccentric.
man; he is possessed of a natural instinct for difficult researches,
neglecting the commonplace he seeks out that which is odd. He
holds in consideration occult influences, magnetic and super-
natural. He is a man of another epoch, a savant of Albert le
Grand. Helbig was one who assisted in exposing that great
fraud Fickel; it was easy to him on account of his great knowl-
edge of the materia medica of the ancients.
4
-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
339
The Heraklides was commenced in 1833. Six volumes were
published. Helbig in the Heraklides repudiated Isopathy, say-
ing that the only means of cure is the homœopathic, and that
this pretended Isopathy is no more nor less than a one-sided
employment of similarly acting remedies.
Dr. Hering says: During a trip to Germany from 1845 to 1846,
I made the acquaintance of Dr. Helbig in Dresden, the prover
of the Nux moschata, and had many interesting and instructive
conversations with him. His heart opened towards me when he
found that I esteemed him so much more highly than any other
of the Homœopathists of Dresden, and he referred in one of his
conversations to the observations of Dr. Esquirol, of Paris,
"In our insane asylums the dyers in blue are melancholic, &c."
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 28, p. 414. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 91, 92, 96,
151. Dudgeon's Lectures. Hahn. Monthly, vol. 6, p. 432.)
HELFRICH, JOHANNES. The following interesting
sketch was written expressly for this book by the Rev. Mr.
Helfrich, a grandson of the old pioneer, and through the courtesy
of Dr. F. J. Slough, of Allentown:
Johannes Helfrich, an eminent American divine, was born in
Weisenberg, Lehigh county, Pa., January 17, 1795. He was a
son of the Rev. John Henry Helfrich, of Mosbach, a village in
Hesse near Frankfurt on-the-Main, who, after completing his
theological studies in the University of Heidelberg, was sent as a
missionary to America, by the Synod of Holland, in 1771. Soon
after his arrival he went to Weisenberg and took charge of the
Ziegel's Charge. Here he married, on the 3d of November, 1773,
Miss Magdalena Sassamanhausan and became permanently
located.
Of the six sons of these parents Johannes Helfrich was the
second youngest. When none of these, agreeable to the wish
of their father, could make up their minds to enter the ministry,
he, as early as his twelfth year, solemnly engaged to realize his
father's desire in regard to himself, and was accordingly from that
time forth diligently directed in his preparatory studies by his
father. In his seventeenth year, after having obtained a thorough
preliminary education through private instructors, he went to
Philadelphia, in company with Rev. John Zülich, where he
340
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
pursued his studies for five years under Rev. Dr. Samuel Helfen-
stine.
In the spring of 1816, while young Mr. Helfrich was yet in
Philadelphia pursuing his theological studies, he received a call
from the Ziegel's Charge, which had become vacant by the death
of his father. He accepted the call, and in the autumn of this
year he made application to the Synod for examination and
licensure, laying at the same time his call before Synod. He was
examined, licensed and obtained permission to accept the call.
Three years later he received ordination at the Synod of Lan-
caster. He served this charge to end of his life. His youngest
son became his successor, and after the death of his son the grand-
child, who still fills the pulpit. Thus the charge continued in
service of one family for one hundred and twenty-five years.
On the 19th of April, 1818, he was married to Miss Salome
Schantz, an accomplished daughter of a prominent family in
Lehigh. As that with his wife, so his union with his congre-
gation, he regarded sacred and indissoluable, and consequently
to the end of his life he continued to labor in the same field.
Mr. Helfrich was very conscientious in the fulfilment of his
duties. He was naturally talented and his talent well-developed.
He had many commendable characteristics. He was exceed-
ingly firm and decisive in his ways. He wrote out in full all
his sermons, adhering to this practice even in his last years.
No one could have persuaded him to enter the pulpit without
previous close study. He left behind a vast number of sermons
and other productions, which prove the profundity of his scholar-
ship. He was much beloved by his people, and although very
decided in carrying out his plans, he never lost the love and
respect of his members.
Three years after Mr. Helfrich's marriage he purchased a home
within a mile from where his father had resided. This home
became an attraction in the surrounding community, and until
his death he resided in this home. He was a warm friend of
the Germans, and consequently his house became a hospitable
home for many immigrants. Until his two sons were grown to
manhood he kept, at different times, six very able German
teachers, who were well versed in the sciences. At this time
his home was recognized all over the county as the Weisenberg
Academy. He was the means of educating many talented young
OF HOMEOPATHY.
341
men who in the community attended this academy and after-
wards became professional and influential men.
Thus being associated with these men of science, it afforded
him a good opportunity for developing his ideas in Homo-
opathy, of which he was a firm advocate. Among these German
professors in the academy was a certain Dr. Wm. Wesselhæft,
who was educated at a European university. Wesselhoft was a
disciple of Homoeopathy, and in later years became a practicing
physician in Bath, Northampton county, Pa., and one of the
founders of Homoeopathy in Lehigh county. Mr. Helfrich being
associated with Dr. Wesselhoeft, can attribute the medical train-
ing of his mind to this friend, whose medical works he perused
and in whose company he made many botanical experiments in
order to find new remedies. Also, Dr. Hering, the most promi-
nent homoeopathic physician in Philadelphia, with whom Mr.
Helfrich was intimately associated, had great influence upon
him and inspired him in his enthusiasm for Homoeopathy.
For a number of years Mr. Helfrich, in connection with his
pastoral labor, was in the habit of prescribing homeopathic
remedies for the bodily ailments of his members. But this new
sphere of practice became burdensome, and finding his strength
and health failing through the increase of work, in attempting
to carry on both professions, he determined to cease doing any
outside practice, and demanded of all patients to call at his
home. His home was soon filled with invalids and took the
form of a hospital more than an educational institution.
In the fall of the year 1830, Mr. Helfrich arranged his work
so as to devote two days of the week to medical treatment.
On
these days as high as twenty to thirty patients were regularly
present and the new healing system of Homoeopathy was put to
a practical test. Dr. Wesselhoft, who was at this time estab-
lished in Bath, would make weekly visits to this Weisenberg
hospital at Helfrich's home and assist in the treatment of the
sick, as well as impart further knowledge to Helfrich in the
medical science. The result of this clinic and dispensary were
very encouraging, and these meetings were kept up until August
23, 1834.
On this day was organized a medical society called the Hom-
œopathic Society of Northampton and Adjacent Counties.
The members from Lehigh (at that time Northampton) were
342
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Rev. Helfrich, Dr. Romig, Dr. Joseph Pulte and Dr. Adolph
Bauer. Pulte practiced in Troxlertown, and Bauer in Lyn
township. This society held regular meetings at Bethlehem,
Allentown and at the residences of its members. Its object was
the advancement of Homoeopathy among the profession, inter-
change of experience and mutual improvement. The result of
these meetings was the establishment of a homoeopathic school
at Allentown, called the "North American Academy of the
Homœopathic Healing Art." This was the first homoeopathic
college in the world. It was founded on the 10th of April,
1835, the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Dr. Hahne-
mann, the celebrated founder of the homoeopathic system.
Dr. Hering, of Philadelphia, was requested to come to Allen-
town and take charge of the presidency of the new college. He
accepted the call and became the leading spirit of the new insti-
tution. The faculty consisted of Drs. Hering, Wesselhoft,
Freytag, Romig, Pulte and Detwiller.
In this institution Rev. Helfrich who was one of its founders,
received one of the first diplomas given. He was now fully
established in the medical art, and instead of a decrease of work
at his home and community he was constantly approached from
all sides by applicants for a number of years.
His work was
growing daily more tedious and burdensome and in order to
relieve himself from this continually increasing work, Mr. Hel-
frich had his eldest son educated in Philadelphia as a physician.
His son, John Henry, graduated in 1846, and established him-
self at the home of his father in Weisenberg. At present he is
practicing in Allentown, and is the oldest practicing physician
in the county. There are also three grandchildren of the rev-
erend father who are practicing physicians in this county.
In 1849 Mr. Helfrich published a German work on homoeo-
pathic veterinary practice. This was the first book on this sub-
ject published in this country.
As his eldest son succeeded him in his medical profession, so his
youngest son, Wm. A. Helfrich, succeeded him in his ministerial
work and perpetuated the honor of his name.
Mr. Helfrich enjoyed good health until within about a year of
his death, when in consequence of an attack of apoplexy he
was unable to preach. On Good Friday evening he retired
cheerful, and at II o'clock in the night he was taken with a
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
343
}
second apoplectic attack, when immediately he lost all conscious-
ness. On the following morning, April 8, 1852, he breathed his
last, aged 57 years, 2 months and twenty-one days. On the
the 11th his funeral took place at the Ziegels Church. During
his ministry Mr. Helfrich baptized four thousand five hundred
and ninety-one children; confirmed between two and three thou-
sand; solemnized over one thousand marriages, and buried
about fifteen hundred.
-
HELWIG. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann jubilee
of 1829. According to the Zeitung list of 1832, he was then
located in Dresden. Quin locates him in Dresden in 1834.
Helwig was a surgeon and not allowed to prescribe and his
doing so got him into difficulty. Ameke tells the story. Dr.
Siebenhaae, an Allopath, was called to see a sick shoemaker, one
Lieschke, who was suffering from inflammation of the lungs.
He bled him and dosed him; the next day more bleeding.
Patient grew worse. He would not permit further bleeding and
asked for homoeopathic assistance. The doctor tried to per-
suade him from it and declared that he would attend him despite
the homoeopathic treatment; he also prescribed. That afternoon
Dr. Trinks, the Homœopath, was sent for; he sent his assistant
surgeon, Lehmann. Lehmann reported to Trinks at eleven at
night, and Trinks, who was then having a trial for dispensing
his own medicines and for alleged improper treatment, resigned
the case and sent word to the patient the next morning. Leh-
mann had not prescribed. The patient now sent for the Homœo-
pathist, Dr. Wolf. Wolf was not at home, so his wife sent Dr.
Helwig. Helwig, according to the law of the time had no right
to treat internal maladies, but he gave Aconite and later Bryonia,
though he had no right in any case to dispense his own medi-
cines. At that time it was malpractice not to bleed in such a case.
Wolf after hearing Helwig's report, declined the case. Then the
Allopath, at Helwig's request continued the treatment. The pa-
tient died on the fourth day of his illness. Legal measures were
now taken against the Homœopathists. A private post mortem
was made from which Helwig was excluded. Judicial proceedings
resulted in a fine for Trinks and Wolf, and for Helwig imprison-
ment for four weeks for treating without a license and for illegal
dispensing. Lehmann to six months' hard labor for criminal
344
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
neglect. The accused appealed and all were acquitted except
Helwig, who served the four weeks' imprisonment. (Ameke,
p. 225)
HELM, L. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829 The name is on the Zeitung and Quin lists. He was in
1829 34 practicing Homoeopathy at Stolpe, Pomerania, where
he was district physician and medical inspector.
HERING, CONSTANTINE. The following sketch of Her
ing was published in the Hahnemannian Monthly shortly after
his death:
Suddenly, at half past ten o'clock, on the evening of July 23,
Dr. Constantine Hering departed this life in the eighty-first year
of his age. During the past decade the doctor has at times suf-
fered quite severely from asthma, though for several years past.
the attacks have been less severe, so that he has been enabled to
attend almost daily upon a large circle of patients. Having
spent the early part of the evening of his decease with his family,
he retired to his study shortly after eight o'clock, seemingly
stronger and more cheery than for some weeks past. Just before
ten o'clock he rang for his wife, who, immediately answering,
found him suffering from extreme dyspnoea, but perfectly
rational. He asked for his old friend and physician, Dr. Charles
G. Raue, who was immediately sent for; at the same time, Dr.
A. W. Koch also, an old and esteemed friend and neighbor, was
summoned; but before help could be offered the spirit had de-
parted. Not unexpected, nor yet unprepared for, was the call.
To one in attendance he remarked, "Now I am dying." Many
times during previous illness did his friends despair of his life,
but he felt his time had not yet come. Now he knew that a
change was indeed coming. That undaunted spirit, which for
more than fourscore years animated the living clay, was about
to leave its abode for realms above. Thus departed one to whom
Homœopathy in America-yea, in the whole world-will ever
remain a debtor.
Though called in the ripeness of old age, his death, neverthe-
less, falls like a heavy pall over the entire profession. We have
been called to mourn the departure of others whose names we
must ever revere; but with the death of Hering is broken a con-
necting link which bound the present to the past, the established
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
345
triumphant homoeopathy of our own day to the early struggles
and sacrifices of its pioneers.
East, West, North, and South, Europe and America, have
among their busy practitioners many who look toward the home
of this truly great man as toward the home of a father. Hundreds
have shared with him of the wondrous store of knowledge
which he possessed. Many came; none were sent empty away.
Their capacity to receive, rather than his willingness to give,
limited the amount bestowed. Blessings will ever attend his
name.
Constantine Hering was born at Oschatz, Saxony, on Jan. 1,
1800. From earliest childhood he evinced an extreme desire to
investigate all things. Apt as a scholar, he soon mastered the
preliminary studies, and was prepared at an early age to enter the
Classical School at Zittau. Here he continued his studies from
1811 to 1817. Even thus early in life he evinced an aptness for
study and an accumulation of knowledge far beyond his years.
Besides his familiarity with the classics, his proficiency in
mathematics was truly surprising. While thus employed his
mind was turned toward medicine, and when opportunity
offered he pursued his studies in that direction, first at the
Surgical Academy of Dresden, and later at the University of
Leipzig. In the latter institution he was a pupil of the eminent
surgeon, Robbi.
About this time his preceptor was requested to write an article
against Homœopathy-one which might prove its death-blow.
Dr. Robbi declined for want of time, but recommended his young
assistant, Hering, who, quite pleased with this mark of confi-
dence, began the work; but meeting much in the writings of
Hahnemann which was new to him, and finally reading the ex-
pression, "Machts nach, aber machts recht nach," he determined
on personal investigation in order that he might the more posi-
tively refute the points which Hahnemann had set before the
profession.
Calling upon an acquaintance, a druggist of Leipzig, for some
Cinchona, he was met by the friendly inquiry, "For what do
you want it?" To this he answered, "For the purpose of prov-
ing it, in order the more thoroughly to attack the new folly."
To this the druggist replied, "Let it alone, Hering; you are
stepping on dangerous ground." Hering's answer was that he
↓
346
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
feared not the truth. And the result was, the pamphlet was not
written, and Homœopathy gained an able champion.
Subsequently, while still pursuing his medical studies, Hering
received a dissecting-wound, which, under the treatment of his
teachers, reached such a degree of severity that amputation of
the hand was advised. At the suggestion of a friend who was a
student of Hahnemann's, the efficacy of the potentized drug was
tried, the result being a complete cure of the wound and a
thorough conversion of Hering. So thoroughly was he con-
vinced that the law of cure had indeed been discovered, that he
staked thereon even his success at the University. His inaugural
thesis, "De Medicina Futura," contained a forcible and unflinch-
ing defense of the law of cure. He completed his medical
studies, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the
University of Wurzburg, March 23, 1826. Soon after his gradu-
ation he was appointed by the king of Saxony to accompany the
Sixon legation to Dutch Guiana, there to make scientific re-
search and prepare a zoological collection for his government,
He continued in this capacity for some years, but his love for
the new truth which he had learned impelled him to further
study, and finally to the practice of medicine according to
Hahnemann's doctrines. Such was his success that he gained
great favor with the governor of the province, whose daughter
he cured of an affection which the resident physicians had de-
clared incurable.
During his residence at Surinam he was an occasional contrib-
utor to the Homœopathic Archives, for which journal he had
written as early as 1825, while still a student of medicine. The
court physician, learning of this, wrought upon the king suffi-
ciently to cause a notice to be sent Hering, directing him to at-
tend to the duties of his appointment, and let medical matters
alone.
His independent nature rebelled at such intolerance, and led
him promptly to resign his appointment. Dr. George H. Bute,
formerly a Moravian missionary at Surinam, and a pupil of
Hering, had settled in Philiadelphia, and was engaged in the
practice of Homœopathy. Dr. Hering continued in practice at
Paramaribo for a short time after his resignation. Learning,
however, from Dr. Bute that Philadelphia offered a good field,
Hering left Paramaribo, and landed at Philadelphia, January,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
347
1833. Here he remained for a short season, when he was in-
duced by Dr. W. Wesselhoeft to assist in the establishment of
a homoeopathic school at Allentown,-the North American
Academy of the Homœopathic Healing Art. He labored in this
field until financial embarrassments necessitated the abandon-
ment of the institution.
This led to his return to Philadelphia, where he engaged in
practice with Dr. Bute, locating on Vine street, below Fourth.
Here he soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. The wide
scope of his education naturally offered a ready introduction to
scientific and literary circles, while the active interest which he
took in our republican form of government led to an acquaint-
ance with many persons of political prominence. Among these
may be mentioned Henry Clay, who, as a patient and friend,
highly appreciated the services rendered by Dr. Hering, as wit-
ness the following extract from a letter dated Dec. 14, 1849:—
"Your liberal kindness toward me would not allow you to indulge me in
the gratification of testifying my gratitude to you for the successful exer-
cise of your professional skill on me, on two distinct occasions, by the
customary compensation; but you cannot prevent the expression of my
great obligation to you for the benefit I derived from your obliging pre-
scriptions. I thank you for them most cordially
With great re-
gard, I am your friend and obedient servant,
"H. CLAY."
Agassiz, Carey, and a host of others, distinguished in politics,
art, and science, were among his friends.
Always a student, endowed with indomitable will and untir-
ing industry, he seemed to infuse every one with whom he came
in contact with the spirit of work. "Change of occupation is
rest," was his oft repeated expression.
Though conducting a large practice, he found time to write
much, and to superintend the work of many younger and less
experienced. His Saturday-night meetings, held for the instruc-
tion of students and young practitioners, were prized as a boon.
Here he imparted golden truths, reaped from fields of ripe ex-
perience such as but few have enjoyed.
Among the remedies which he proved prior to his departure
with the Saxon legation may be mentioned Mezereum Sabadilla,
Sabina, Colchicum, Plumbum aceticum, Paris quadrifolia, Can-
tharis, Iodium; also fragramentary provings of Antimonium tar-
taricum, Argentum metallicum, Aristolochia, Clematis erecta,
348
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Belladonna, Caltha palustris, Demantium, Geum rivale, Nostoc,
Opium, Ruta, Tanacetum, and Viola tricolor.
During his residence in South America his observations and
provings embraced Lachesis, Theridion, Curassivicum, Aska-
labotes, Caladium seguinum, Jamboo, Jatropha, Solanum mam-
mosum, Spigelia, Vanilla, Alumina, Phosphoric acid, and Psori-
num.
After his arrival at Philadelphia we find him again employed
in like work, either proving or superintending the provings of
Mephitis, Ictodes fœtida, Crotalus, Hydrophobinum, Brucea,
Calcarea phosph. (both acid and basic), Hippomanes, Castor
equorum, Kalmia, Nicandra, Viburnum, Phytolacca, Gelsemium,
Gymnocladus, Chlorine, Bromium, Fluoric acid, Ferrum met.,
Kobalt, Niccolum, Oxalic acid, Oxygen, Ozone, Thallium, Tellu-
rium, Palladium, Platinum, Osmium, Lithium, Glonoine, Apis,
Cepa, Aloes, Millefolium, Baryta carb., Nux moschata, and For
mica.
Among his other works may be mentioned:
"Rise and Progress of Homœopathy;" a pamphlet, Phila-
delphia, 1834, afterwards translated into the Dutch and Swedish
languages.
"Necessity and Benefits of Homoeopathy;" a pamphlet, 1835.
"Domestic Physician," published in 1835. This work passed
through fourteen editions in America, two in England, and thir-
teen in Germany, and has also been translated into the French,
Spanish, Italian, Danish, Hungarian, Russian, and Swedish lan-
guages.
"The Effects of Snake Poison," 1837.
"Homœopathic Hatchels," 1845.
'Proposals to Kill Homœopathy;" a satire, 1846.
Suggestions for the Provings of Drugs," 1853.
"Amerikanische Arzneiprüfungen,” 1853-57.
Translations of Gross's "Comparative Materia Medica," 1866.
Analytical Therapeutics," the first volume only, issued, 1875.
"Condensed Materia Medica," two editions, 1877-79.
"Guiding Symptoms," the third volume of which he completed
just prior to his death.
In addition to these may be mentioned his editorial work con-
nected with the Homeopathic News, 1854, and the American
Journal of Homeopathic Materia Medica, 1867-71, besides many
46
<C
"
-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
349
· miscellaneous writings scattered through the various journals of
our school. It may further be added that he assisted in the
translation of Jahr's Manual, Allentown Edition, 1838.
Dr. Hering was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia, to which institution he presented his large
zoölogical collection. He was one of the founders of the Amer-
ican Institute of Homœopathy, and for many years continued in
active relationship with it, as well as with the State and county
societies. He was
He was one of the originators of the American
Provers' Union, instituted Aug. 10, 1853. He was also one of
the founders and a member of the first faculty of the Homœo-
pathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, continuing in this re-
lationship at intervals until 1867, when he assisted in founding
the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia, in which he
held the Chair of Institutes and Materia Medica, being Emeritus
of the same at the time of his death.
It would be difficult to give a proper estimate of Dr. Hering's
character, and of his influence upon medical science. His acts
are matters of medical history, and the impress of his thought is
already made, deep in the medical practice of our age. It is not
possible that the memory of his career is one which posterity
will willingly let die; for the coming ages, even more than the
present, will learn to depend upon LAW as the great governing
factor in the production of the facts of natural science, thera-
peutics included. And so, as Homeopathy must become more
and more the one only acknowledged therapeutic principle, the
brightest names that posterity will cherish will be those who
have done so much to establish it among men, while among the
most brilliant of them all will stand the name of-HERING.
(See also: Cleave's Biography. Memorial to Const. Hering,
Phila., 1880. Trans. Amer. Inst. Hom., 1881. Med. Couns., vol.
2, 173. Vol. 3, pp. 193, 224. Vol. 4, 214. Am. Hom. Obs., vol.
13, p. 287. Vol. 17, pp. 424, 470. Vol. 18, pp. 99, 109. Minneap
Hom. Mag., June, 1895. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 713. U. S.
Med. Inves., vol. 12, p. 154. Hahn. Monthly, vol. II, p. 423,
(Aug., 1880). St. Louis Clin. Rev., vol 3, p. 238. N. E. Med.
Hom. Times (N. Y.), vol. 8, p. 114. Med.
Hom. Jour. Obst., vol. 2. p. 124. The above
are the principal references to his death but all homœopathic journal-
ism bears the impress of his powerful pen.)
Gaz., vol. 15, p. 307.
Adv., vol. 9, p. 227.
•
Va
350
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
HERING, WILLIAM. The following obituary notice of
this English pioneer of Homoeopathy appeared in the British
Journal: Dr. Hering, who died on the 10th of October last, at
Reigate, after repeated attacks of an apoplectic character, was
one of the older race of homoeopathic practitioners. He was
born in 1803, and took out his license to practice from the
Apothecaries' Company, in 1826. Early in his career he became
a convert to Hahnemann's doctrines, and continued steadily to
practice homœopathically until the end of his professional life.
Failing health compelled him to withdraw himself from the
active duties of practice a few years ago, and he vainly sought
renewed vigor in several of the most renowned German baths.
Though a careful and successful practitioner, Dr. Hering added
little to the development of our art. A few practical papers scat-
tered among our periodical literature are all that he has done in
this way.
But his death has created a more profound sorrow
among his colleagues, and among an immense circle of friends,
than that of many a more conspicuous apostle of the cause. His
popularity was greatly owing to his inexhaustible humor, his
kindness of disposition, and his affectionate nature. These quali-
ties served to gain him the friendship of many beyond the mere
circle of patients and colleagues. Indeed, he enjoyed the inti-
macy of many of the most distinguished men of his time—
D'Orsay, E. Landseer, Theodore Hook, the Chalons, Etty-and,
indeed, almost all those conspicuous in art were among his
friends and acquaintances. His social qualities recommended
him to the tables of wits and patrons of wit of the last generation,
and no one could better entertain a company, or "keep the table
in a roar,
than our departed colleague. But the mere posses-
sion of a ready wit and uncommon powers of mimicry would not
alone have sufficed to render him so beloved as he was by all
who knew him. His heart was as warm as his wit was sprightly,
and he was singularly free from the meaner passions of envy and
spite too often found in alliance with a turn for jesting. While
broadly humorous, there was never anything ill natured about
his stories. Of German descent, he abounded in the German
quality of Gemüthlichkeit or playful good humor. He has left a
void in our little world it will be hard to fill. (Brit. Jour. Hom.,
vol. 35, p. 93.)
""
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
351
HERMANN, C. TH. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was practicing Homœopathy
in Sorau, in the Niederlausitz, Prussia. His name appears both
on the Zeitung and Quin lists. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 88, p. 128.)
HERRMANN. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 Herrmann
was at that time practicing Homeopathy in St. Petersburg. His
name also appears in the Quin list of 1834. Bojanus says that
Herrmann, of Dresden, arrived in St. Petersburg with the Coun-
tess Osterman Tolstoy, in 1827, during an epidemic of dysentery,
and had achieved such brilliant results in its treatment with
homoeopathic medicines that he was commissioned by the Grand
Duke Michael Paulovitsch to go to Tultschin in order to treat in
the hospital of the Imperial Guards, patients suffering from fevers
of various kinds, dysentery and other acute disorders. For this
he received a salary of 12,000 roubles. This salary excited the
envy of other military doctors, who got but 700 roubles, so they
contrived that a number of cases of incurable diseases should be
sent into the homeopathic department, though this was con-
trary to the intention of the Grand Duke. During the three
months of Dr. Herrmann's service he treated: Patients admitted,
164; cured, 123; convalescing, 18; remaining sick, 18: died, 6.
When it is borne in mind that the sanitary condition of the
building allotted to Herrmann was exceedingly defective, being
damp and without proper ventilation; that the local allopathic
authorities selected the patients assigned to the rival hospitals,
that one-half of those received by Herrmann had been under allo-
pathic treatment for various periods, and that Herrmann had to
contend with all the petty hindrances, intrigues and interferences
which in that far off district could be opposed to him, the results
could hardly have been more favorable.
An analysis of the cases shows six of typhus cured, of which
three had been pronounced incurable by the allopaths; two of
phthisis, eight of inflammatory rheumatism, one of colliquative
diarrhoea, one of gangrenous scorbutic ulcers, and one of hyper-
trophy of liver and spleen. The deaths comprised one of typhus,
two of phthisis, and of diarrhoea, gangrene and hypertrophy, one
each, all of which cases had come from other hospitals in an en-
feebled state. However, the experiment was terminated by an
order of the Emperor at the end of three months, based on the
-
352
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
statistics, which were said to show "that the new treatment
furnishes no better results than the old."
But it seemed evident, at least to the imperial family, that this
trial of Homœopathy was inconclusive; for in 1829 the Grand
Duke Constantine placed an institution at Warsaw, containing
500 children of soldiers, under the medical control of Dr. Bigler.
Furthermore, on the return of Herrmann to St. Petersburg, he
was appointed by high order to make trial of his mode and
practice in the military hospital, under the supervision of the
chief physician, Dr. Giegler, who was to set aside a department,
of the same extent as Hermann's ward, in which to test the com-
parative merits of the expectant method. This second series of
experiments forms the subject of Dr. Seidlitz's work before re-
ferred to, the animus of which is plainly shown in the unreason-
ing and intemperate abuse of Hahnemann and his system which
disfigures its pages. Out of 431 cases he selects 50 for critical
analysis, professing that these have been impartially taken from
the total number, and thus proceeds to judgment!
As above mentioned, Herrmann's department was placed under
the supervision of Dr. Giegler; but as the latter was led by the
good results he witnessed to regard Homoeopathy with too much
favor the government replaced him by another physician.
The experiments were commenced September 19th, 1829, and
terminated February 19th, 1830. The Homoeopathic returns
were as follows: 400 patients cured; 31 patients lost.
roubles (about $7,000) found their way into the pockets of the
Homœopathists.
20,000
He afterwards located at Thalgau, near Salzburg where he
developed a new Isopathy. He wrote a book called the Real
Isopathy, in 1848, in which he claimed that preparations of
animal substances would cure diseases of corresponding organs.
In diseases of the liver he recommended a tincture made from
the liver of the fox; he also used preparations of the spleen and
the lungs. (Die Wahre Isopathik, Augsburg, 1848. See, also,
Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 27, p. 87. Kleinert, p. 244. Rapou., vol.
2, þþ. 200, 600, 671. World's Conven., vol. 2, pp. 35, 247. Dud-
geon's Lectures. Brit. Jour. Hom., 38, 307.)
HERWITZ. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at
Graetz, Styria. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 200.)
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
353
HERZOG. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 Herzog
was practicing in Grimma at that time. Quin also locates him
there two years later.
HESSE. Was one of the contributors to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. He was then practicing in Pernau in Livonia.
The name is in the Zeitung and Quin lists.
HEYDER, LUDWIG. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in
Dresden. The Zeitung list of 1832 locates him there, as does
Quin, two years later.
The Zeitung thus mentions him:
In the first morning hours of December 14, 1858, passed away
in Freiberg, Dr. Ludwig Heyder, a most estimable man and a
worthy representative of Homoeopathy. He was a son of the
late third teacher in the Kreuzschule at Dresden. He was an
enthusiastic lover of his science-almost his last powers were
given to its study. He was also a conscientious and indefati-
gable counselor and cherisher of his patients, who were fre-
quently found in the most rugged parts of the Erzgebirge. As a
colleague, he was as amiable as he was unassuming, and he was
honored by his brethren in spite of his differing from them in
his scientific tendencies. More than a quarter of a century Dr.
Heyder had devoted to his medical practice here, and he leaves
behind him a grateful memory as well in the families as in the
hearts of the single patients to whom he ministered. The Central
Verein loses in him a most worthy member. (A. H. Z., vol. 57,
p. 184; vol. 58, p. 8.)
HEYE. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin's
list of 1834, Heye was practicing in Leipsic at that time.
HILLE, JR. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832 and
Quin's of 1834; he was then in practice at Freiberg, Saxony.
HOFFENDAHL. Was, in 1832, a practitioner of Homo-
opathy in Mildenitz, near Maldeck, in Mecklenburg. His name
is in the Zeitung list of that date, and on the list of Quin of 1834.
HOLST, VON. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubi-
lee of 1829. He was then practicing Homoeopathy at Dorpat,
Livonia, and was Stadtphysicus. His name is given in both the
Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin's of 1834.
354
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
HORATIIS, COSMO MARIA DE. Was a practitioner of
Naples and converted to Homoeopathy by Dr. Necker in 1822.
His name is given both in the Zeitung list of 1832 and that of
Quin of 1834. He was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee
of 1829. Dadea tells us that Cosmo Maria de Horatiis, of
Cacavone-Campobasso, already the alternate of Antonio Scarpa
in the chair of surgery of the Athenæum of Ticino,—an honor
far transcending any that all the kings of the earth could be-
stow, was Surgeon in-Chief of the Neapolitan army, Inspector-
General of the Military Hospitals, Private Physician to the
Hereditary Prince, the Duke of Calabria, afterwards Francis I,
then physician to this king, and subsequently Professor of
Clinical Surgery in the University of Naples and President of
the Council of Vaccination. He soon perceived that a summary
of the Organon was far from sufficient to convey an exact idea of
Hahnemann's doctrine, and that the clinical observations made
under Necker were inadequate to the needs of a general
practice; he realized the necessity of a translation of the Organon
and the Matera Medica Pura as indispensable to a conscientious
and rational practice.
Professor Cosmo de Horatiis, by reason of his eminence in
science and his official position at the court and in the kingdom,
should be regarded as the chief of the first triad of learned and
ardent apostles in Italy of the doctrines of Hahneman.
His first care was to make the new practice acceptable to the
king-not so easy a matter if we remember that princes, though
absolute, are often servants of their servants, and still oftener
princes of the crowd. He succeeded through his fortunate cure
of a most serious illness of the Queen. In consequence of this,
not only were there many conversions at the court, but the king
declared himself the patron of Homoeopathy and of the Homo-
opathists. Having secured the favor of the king, Horatiis en-
deavored to gain that of a scientific corporation, the Medico-
Chirurgical Academy of Naples. At a regular meeting, October
19 (or 9th), 1826, he read an oration, afterwards published in
Latin, in which he pointed out the errors of the old medical
systems and warmly urged them to investigate Hahnemann's
new method. The celebrated Professor Tommasini was present,
and he addressed himself especially to him, urging him to ex-
amine it and render an opinion. After his return to Bologna
OF HOMEOPATHY.
355
Tommasini, in an introductory lecture, delivered in 1826-27,
mentioned the subject, and while not condemning his own school
he yet was rather favorable to Homœopathy. He advised experi-
ments with homoeopathic remedies.
De Horatiis communicated to the Academy several noteworthy
cures. But he thought that theoretical demonstrations before the
learned ought to be followed by clinical experiment also in the
presence of the learned. To this end, having his sovereign's
approval, he opened his clinique in March in the general mili-
tary hospital of Trinity, assisted by Drs. Baldi, Grossi, and
Pezzillo, in the presence of the chiefs of service Drs. de Cusatis
and Ascione, and of Dr. de Simone and the entire medical staff
of the hospital.
He published a report of the experiment the same year in a
quarto of 84 pages, entitled "Saggio di Clinica Omiopatica la
Prima Volta Tentato in Napoli Nell, Ospedale General Militare
Della Trinita." This report, the truth of which was indisputable,
since the experiments had been made in the presence of men
eminent in science and in character and under the royal protec-
tion, created great excitement within the realm and abroad. It
contains abridged or complete records of 180 clinical cases
treated in the space of a few months,* among which are worthy of
note a number of cases of primary and secondary syphilis, of
acute and chronic blenorrhagia, simple or complicated by
orchitis, phimosis and the like; of acute and chronic ophthalmia,
and especially some cases of obscured cornea of high degree,
cured in a short time by Cannabis sativa, Staphisagria, and Phos-
phoric acid in the 30th dilution.
Encouraged by success, and taking counsel only of his heart,
De Horatiis thought he could best accomplish the noble end he
desired by giving the experiment an official character under an
official commission. His best friends, better acquainted with
the nature of men in general and of physicians in particular,
and cognizant of the enmity which burned in the minds of
certain envious allopathic physicians against De Horatiis, tried to
dissuade him. He persisted, however, and at his request King
Francis I, January 23d, 1829, approved a decree in eight sections.
designed to secure fair play and honest judgment on all sides.
*This experiment lasted from March to December, 1828, and must not be
confounded, as it often has been, with the public experiment made in 1829.
356
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
A commission of six members and six alternates, appointed
by the government, was to be present at the preparation and ad-
ministration of the remedies, to accompany the director in his
visits to the patients, to make along with the director and assist-
ants the diagnoses and sign the record of them, to verify and
sign at each visit a statement of the condition of each patient
and a statement of the final result in each case; these records to
be kept in the archives of the clinique and a copy given the di-
rector for publication. Two assistants, one representing the com-
mission and the other the director, were to remain constantly in
the wards to keep an accurate account of whatever occurred dur-
ing the absence of the commission and the director, to preserve
order, and watch visitors. The director had the right of refus-
ing cases not suitable for positive and comparative experimenta-
tion, but was bound to justify his refusal. In the first place
diseases were to be treated which Homoeopathy is reputed to cure
more rapidly than Allopathy, then more difficult, and finally
desperate cases. The wards were to be large, containing 15 to
20 beds, well lighted, with only one entrance, and that well
guarded.
The commissioners appointed by the government were Dr.
Lucarelli, Professor Lanza, Dr. Delforno; Dr. Ronchi, formerly
court physician; Dr. Folinea, and Professor Macry. The alter-
nates were Dr. Panvini, Dr. Curti, Dr. Araneo, Dr. Albanese,
Dr. Alessi, and Dr. Marchesani.
Professor de Horatiis, Director of the Clinique, selected as
Vice-Director Dr. Romani, who, foreseeing the troubles that
subsequently occurred, at first declined, but under persuasion of
General Caraffa di Noja and other ardent friends of the new
doctrine accepted the appointment. Dr. Vincenzo Laraja was
chosen assistant of the director.
After some delay on account of De Horatiis' engagements at
court and of difficulty in overcoming the reluctance of the com-
missioners and alternates, the clinique was opened April 13th,
1829.
Of the commissioners Professor Macry never made his ap-
pearance at the hospital, Dr. Folinea attended only the first
visit, Dr. Delforno attended two or three times, but perceiving
that several patients whose death he had predicted were getting
well he came no more; Professor Lanza attended seven or eight
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
357
times without saying a word, Dr. Lucarelli appeared only once
to request the closure of the clinique, and Dr. Ronchi attended
five or six times and with great pomp uttered sinister prognosti-
cations.
Of the alternates Dr. Marchesani was the most attentive, and
not only was converted to Homœopathy, but defended it most ef-
fectively against the calumniators of this experiment; Dr. Alessi,
who was also a most diligent attendant, became a homoeopath
and defender of Homœopathy; Dr. Araneo took upon himself
the duty of continually informing the poor patients, that they
were being experimented with like cattle; Dr. Curti, a violent.
and brutal man, did nothing but provoke the homoeopaths by
gratuitous insults, carrying his vulgarity so far as to be rebuked
by Professor Lanza whose alternate he was; Dr. Panvini was so
dishonest as to deny the facts which occurred before his eyes, so
that the verification of the condition of the patients was always
in dispute and almost impossible; and Dr. Albanese was one of
those men who stop at nothing to gain an advantage over an ad-
versary.
With such elements it is easy to see the probable course of the
clinique and the verdict of the commission. But who could
have anticipated that these wards, in which it behooved the com-
missioners and their alternates, as honest and impartial judges,
to seek the truth with earnest, peaceful minds in the interests of
the science they professed and of humanity, would become an
arena for the display of malignant passion and almost incredible
ribaldry? History, however, records facts of which only infa-
mous men could be guilty.
The clinique remained open until September 13th of the same.
year; seventy-one patients were received, of whom fifty-three
were completely cured, six remained, much improved, when the
clinique closed, and two, who entered moribund, died; of the
latter, one was a case of malignant parotitis and the other a case
of typhus. Of those who remained in the clinique, one was an
inveterate ophthalmia with pannus, one a purulent ophthalmia,
and three were cases of thoracic disease. The cures were cases
of fever; of gonorrhoea, simple or with phimosis; primary syphi-
* The records were published in an abridged form by Dr. Eligio Romani
in 1847, as an appendix to the translation of a discourse by Simpson.
358
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
lis with phagedenic ulcer and buboes; of jaundice; of pleuritis ;
of angina tonsillaris; of chemosis; of purulent ophthalmia, etc.
The clinique was attended by many foreign physicians and by
many Italians, both Neapolitans and others; and these were both
witnesses and judges of what occurred. Among the latter may
be named Dr. Pezzillo, Dr. Baldi, chief army physician; Dr.
Buongiovanni, Dr. Grossi, Dr. Rubini, Dr. Traliani, of Ascoli;
Dr. da Rabatta, of Fabriano; Dr. Des Guidi, resident at Lyons,
and Dr. Sannicola, of Venafro. Among the foreigners were
Dr. Pizzati, a distinguished physician of the Russian army; Dr.
Schultz, of Berlin; Dr. Miliusy, physician of the czar, and Dr.
Quin, of London, who became a homoeopath and one of the
most fervent and effective apostles of. Homœopathy in Great
Britain.
The clinical records were all signed by the director † and vice-
director, and countersigned by the commissioners and alternates
when they were present and as long as they attended.
These happy results, attested by witnesses and signatures that
could not be impeached, instead of cooling passions, which deeply
wounded self-conceit had kindled, greatly inflamed them. Only
a few days after the clinique was opened a rumor of great mor-
tality among the patients treated homoeopathically in the great
Hospital of the Trinity began to creep about the city, and, grow-
ing as rapidly as calumny and slander are wont to grow, it soon
reached the royal ear. On the 8th of May the Duke of Calabria
(afterwards Ferdinand II.), accompanied by two generals, sud-
denly appeared in the wards and demanded the list of the dead.
Great was his astonishment on being told that no such list ex-
isted, since, of the patients received, none had thus far died.
"Then," said the prince, "the sick whom I see here must be
the dead brought to life again."
After, perhaps in consequence of, this rebuke the adver-
saries of Homœopathy, willing to substantiate their calumnies
with incontestable facts, endeavored to poison the patients under
treatment.
There was in the clinique a man named Domenico Fioccola,
who was seriously ill; Commissioner Ronchi had, with strong
† Dr. de Horatiis, being obliged to attend the king, was absent several
times; Romani never.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
359
emphasis, prognosticated his death, and his alternate, Dr. Alba-
nese, at each visit, repeated the unfavorable prognosis to the
poor patient. Nevertheless, Fioccola got better; on the twelfth
day he was free from fever and convalescent, a result which was
attested by the most distinguished physicians who attended the
clinique, among them Dr. Milius. Suddenly Fioccola's fever re-
kindled, and the poor fellow was in a state of the greatest peril.
The allopaths were overjoyed; the homopaths could not account
for the fact, which learned physicians had not foreseen, and which
honest ones could not have anticipated. Suspicions arising, the
director demanded an inquiry, which was held by the commandant
of the hospital on June 9th. This inquiry brought to light the
following facts:
1. That Dr. Albanese, alternate of Commissioner Ronchi, had
secretly given dried figs to Fioccola and some other patients, en-
joining them not to tell the homoeopathic assistant, Dr. Laraja,
that he had done so.
2. That Fioccola alone, whose death had been predicted by
these physicians, soon after eating the dried figs, showed symp-
toms of poison, which were fortunately followed by vomiting of
the contents of the stomach.*
Dr. Albanese was publicly accused of this nefarions crime; but
the good nature and ill-timed generosity of Drs. de Horatiis and
Romani on the one side, and the self-interested interposition of
Dr. Ronchi on the other, saved the accused from a judicial in-
vestigation and from the rigor of the laws. Fioccola, meanwhile,
had left the hospital in perfect health.
The magnanimity of the homoeopaths was far from disarming
the adversaries of the new doctrine; so true is it that this noble
virtue is often not only powerless against, but even gives im-
munity to, the dangers that threaten the cause of justice. They
adopted another method to put an end to the experiment or at
least to deprive it of the legitimate value which the eminent
success already attained conferred upon it.
On the fortieth day of the clinique, the six commissioners, in-
cluding Macry, who had never before appeared, and the six
* A copy of the report of the Court of Inquiry, countersigned by the com-
mandant, and addressed to Dr. de Horatiis by order of the Director General
of Military Hospitals, may be found in the Effemeridi di Medicini Omio-
patica, vol. i, p. 81. It is dated June 22, 1829.
360
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
alternates attended in a body. Provocation and abuse on that
day reached their climax, and, after a fierce battle of words, the
commissioners and their alternates abandoned the clinique for-
ever. At the same time they addressed a secret report against it
to the president of public instruction, and through him to the
minister of the interior, who laid it before a cabinet council.
The king could not credit the accusations of the allopaths; he
nevertheless desired to examine the records with his own eyes.
Accordingly on the 9th of June, his aide-de-camp, the Duke of
San Valentino, accompanied by General La Grua, the Inspector
General of Hospitals, appeared suddenly at the Hospital of the
Trinity, seized, sealed, and took away all the records and papers
relating to the experiment. Records of patients discharged
cured, records of cases under treatment-this was all that these
papers revealed or could reveal to the astonished monarch. But
what of this? The calumniator is never disheartened, well
knowing that, if he plies his trade, some at least of his slander
will adhere.
Dr. Panvini, who in 1824 opened the virulent warfare in Italy
against Homoeopathy by his "Critical Reflections on the Medi-
cal System of S. Hahnemann;" Vice Commissioner Panvini, who
at the hospital was wont to fight, watch in hand, for one pulsa-
tion more or less to be entered in the clinical record, published a
famous pamphlet, entitled "The Forty Days in the Homœo-
pathic Clinique of Naples." The cases cured by Homoeopathy
were slight ones and nature effected the cure; the cures were
always slow; the homoeopathic remedies, which in 1824 he had
called poisons, had no effect whatever; this and similar nonsense,
duly seasoned with malignant insults, directed against persons
most respectable and highly respected, constitute the substance
of this work of Panvini, and the form was worthy of the
substance.
Dr. Marchesani, who had also attended the clinique as vice
commissioner, replied at once and most effectively to Panvini,
and with a few words, more were not needed, closed forever the
lips of his rebuked colleague.
Notwithstanding this whirlwind of passion and malice, the
clinique continued, as we have seen, until September, but with-
out the attendance of the commission.
At this time it became De Horatiis' duty to attend the king
OF HOMEOPATHY.
361
on a visit to Spain;* and Romani, tired of past, intolerant of
present, and apprehensive of future vexations during the direc-
tor's absence with the king, retired on the 13th of September,
and the clinique was formally closed on the 17th, 1829,
Such is the history of the hundred and fifty five days of the
public trial of Homoeopathy in the great Hospital of the Trinity
in Naples; a trial which shed great lustre on Hahnemann's
doctrines and greatly incensed its adversaries, and brought upon
the whole sect of the Allopaths an infamy of which they have
not purged themselves.
During his travels in Spain, and subsequently in France, Pro-
fessor De Horatiis made the name of Homoeopathy known and
respected in the halls of the scientific men of these nations.
In Madrid he read before the Medical Academy a report of the
Naples clinique;† and in the Academy of Medicine of Paris, in
the presence of Portal and the flower of the French physicians,‡
at the session of June 13. 1830, he gave in an elegant Latin
oration a compendious exposition of the Hahnemannian doctrine.
After his return to his own country he lived twenty years,
dying March 26, 1850, instructing in the theory and more
difficult operations of surgery the ablest men of the present gen-
eration, and teaching and practicing the doctrines of Homo-
opathy, which persecution had only endeared to him.
July 1st, 1829, appeared, under the nominal direction of De
Horatiis, the first number of a monthly journal, entitled Effeme-
ridi di Medicina Omiopatica, compiled by a society of physicians.
The active direction was intrusted to Drs. Rocco Pezzillo and
Mauro; Romani and De Horatiis were active editors. Two
volumes were published, the first comprising. the second half of
the year 1829, and the second the first eleven months of 1830,
when the publication ceased for the same reason that caused the
closure of the clinique.
This journal, the first to appear after the Archiv für die Homöo-
* Francis I. accompanied his daughter, Maria Christina, who went to
marry King Ferdinand VII. of Spain.
†This statement rests on the authority of Dr. Rubini; I have found no
record of the fact.
Salvatore Tommasi in Discourso Funebre Letto Nelle Esegie del Com
mendatore Cosmo Maria de Horatiis. The oration was published in the
Effemeridi di Medicina Omiopatica, vol. ii, page 225.
362
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
pathische Heilkunst, which was the first in our literature, is second
to none in the value of its contents. Clinical facts predominate, and
like a host of others of ancient as well as recent date, they prove
that opinions on the pure doctrine of Hahnemann, and especially
on the Hahnemannian dose, can never be too carefully weighed.
In 1845 De Horatiis published an Italian translation of the
fourth edition of Hahnemann's Organon, with fragments of his
other works and a homoeopathic pharmacopoeia.* In this way
he replied to Esquirol, who, some years before, had asserted
in the French Academy that De Horatiis no longer practiced
Homœopathy. This was the last literary work of his busy life.
He died in 1850, almost eighty years old, lamented, as few have
ever been, by the followers of Hahnemann and by his adver-
saries.
An account of this trial of Homœopathy in the hospital at
Naples has also been published in the British Journal of Homo-
opathy, vol. 14. (World's Con., vol. 2, 1068, 1075. Rapon., vol.
1, 132–40, 241., Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, 308.)
HROMADA, SURGEON. An attack of Apoplexia san-
guinea on the 12th of April, of this year (1838), at Teplitz,
brought the life of the pensioned Royal Brittish Surgeon Hromada
to a sudden close. His journey to North America, the death of a
son during his absence and some other depressing emotions may
have consumed in great degree the marrow of his life.
He was
taken sick immediately after his return from North America, and
for six months he struggled in London with maladies and cares
of various kinds. Having returned to his wife in Teplitz, he
could no more fully recover. As far as I know, he was born in
Prague and had gone to England as a boy of eight years and
had entered the royal service as surgeon in the marine. He only
learned to know Homœopathy in the last two decennia of his
life, but he practiced it with success.
It has been cited against the provings of Dr. Hromada that he,
like Nenning, paid provers. His name appears in the Zeitung
list of 1832, at which time he was practicing at Teplitz. (Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 21, p. 469. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 13, p. 240.
Kleinert, 116.)
*The illustrious historian of Italian medicine, Salvatore de Renzi, and
Professor Salvatore Tommasi have published worthy eulogies of De-
Horatiis.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
363
HUNNIUS. Was one of the contributors to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was practicing in Esthland.
Was in practice at Arnstadt, Saxo 1y, from 1832-34. The
name is on the lists of the Zeitung and of Quin.
HULL, AMOS GERALD. Dr. Hull was the first American
who commenced the study of medicine as a homeopathic student.
He was born in New Hartford, N. Y., in 1810. He received his
education at the Union College, Schenectady, where he graduated
in 1826, at the age of 16. He remained there for some months,
pursuing a post-graduate course of studies in chemistry and
anatomy under Dr. B. F. Joslin. In 1828 he began the study of
medicine. He entered Rutgers Medical College, New York, in
1828. He studied an extra college course as a private pupil of
Drs. Francis and Bushe. He also received daily instruction from
Dr. Gram, who taught him botany in the summer and in the
winter evenings dictated a course in anatomy in Latin which
Hull recorded in Latin as it fell from Gram's lips. He gradu-
ated from Rutgers College in 1832, and the next year began to
practice Homoeopathy. The Medical Society of the County of
New York had established a public and recorded examination of
all applicants for a license to practice. Dr. Hull was the first
who underwent the examination. After practicing some years
in New York he removed to Newburgh, at the solicitation of
Mr. Thomas Powell and his wife, where he remained several
years, returning to New York to practice for a few years before
his death. In 1828 he became a member of the New York Medi-
cal and Philosophical Society. He was elected corresponding
secretary the following year, and the next year its president.
He was also a member of the New York County Medical Society,
and one of its censors in 1835. He was prominent as an advo-
cate for a public and recorded examination of candidates for
membership. In 1835, with Dr. Gray, he edited the American
Journal of Homœopathia, and in 1840, under his editorship, the
Homœopathic Examiner appeared. He also edited an edition of
Everest's "Popular View of Homoeopathy" and several editions of
Laurie's "Homœopathic Domestic Practice." He also edited
several editions of "Jahr's Manual," and assisted in the "Symp-
364
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
tomen Codex.” At the time he joined the New York County
Society membership was compelled to every physician by the
law of the State of New York. He visited Hahnemann, in Paris,
in 1836-37, of which he wrote a very interesting account for
the Examiner, and which was also published in pamphlet form,
with a portrait of Hahnemann.
Dr. Hull was highly esteemed by his confrères as a man of
scientific and literary attainments, a skillful physician and a
gentleman of strong social attachments. He died April 25, 1859,
aged 49 years. The obituary notice in the American Institute
Transactions is as follows: A. Gerald Hull, A. B., M. D., died
on the 25th of April, 1859, after a protracted illness of erysipela-
tous inflammation of the head, in the 49th year of his age. He
was born at New Hartford, Oneida connty, N. Y., in 1810. His
father, Amos G. Hull, was a surgeon of eminence in central New
York, and one of the founders of the State Medical Society.
Young Hull entered the sophomore class in Union College in
1826, and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1828. He
chose the medical profession, and received the degree of Doctor
of Medicine from Rutgers College in 1832. In 1833 he com-
menced the practice of medicine in partnership with his brother-
in law, Dr. John F. Gray. Dr. Hull's talents were of no ordi-
nary character, and he directed them with untiring zeal and
energy to the development of practical and philanthropical
truth. His education was varied, and his taste in literature and
art was correct and pure. In conversation he was generously en-
dowed, and although seldom, if ever, impetuous or intrusive, he
was at times very forcible and persuasive. In disposition he was
peculiarly amiable and kind. It was rarely that a censorious
expression escaped his lips; the follies of men or the conduct of
the unscrupulous excited his animadversion-it was severe, but
never cynical nor morose. He was universally beloved by his
patients and friends, and the medical profession regarded him
with esteem and confidence. (Cleave's Biography. N. E. Med,
Gaz., March, 1871. Trans. N. Y. Hom. Med. Soc., 1863. Trans.
Amer. Inst. Hom., 1859. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 448. Amer.
Hom. Rev., vol. 1, pp. 384, 427.)
IHM, CARL. Was a native of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and a
graduate of Wurzburg, Bavaria. He came to Philadelphia in
1829. Being instigated by Mr. William Geisse, a Philadelphia
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
365
merchant, he studied Homœopathy, adopted its tenets, and at
once began to practice. He was the first physician to practice
Homœopathy in Philadelphia. He is said to have practiced in
partnership with Dr. Lewis Saynisch, in Tioga county, Pa.,
then afterwards went to Cuba for his health. (World's Con., vol.
2, pp. 711, 759.)
IMPIMBO. Was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy in
Italy. According to the list of Dr. Quin he was, in 1834, prac-
ticing in Venafro.
IRIARTE, BENITUA. Was a rich merchant of Cadiz who,
while traveling in Rome for his health, became acquainted with
Dr. Necker and became greatly interested in the new medical
system. After a long stay in Italy he resolved to study Homo-
opathy from its founder. Jriarte was a friend of Senor Vilalba of
the Diplomatic Corps, and they together traveled to Coethen, to
visit Hahnemann, and to consult him concerning the illness of
the former. Hahnemann advised him to go to Lyons, where he
recovered his health under the care of Dr. Des Guidi, and full
of gratitude for this new method of healing, to which he owed
his cure, he bought a large number of copies of Hahnemann's
works and distributed them among the various physicians of
Andalusia. Moreover, he sent to Leipsic, at his own expense,
a medical student, nephew of his friend Vilalba, to study this
new system of medicine with the most distinguished German
Homœopaths, but having a preference like his uncle for a diplo-
matic career he did not carry out the intentions of Iriarte.
Iriarte was so grateful to Des Guidi for his cure that he placed
in his hand 12,000 francs for the gratuitous treatment of cholera
patients, in case there should be an epidemic. (World's Conv.,
vol. 2, p. 321. Rapou., vol. 1, 175.)
IVANYOS, FRANZ VON. The name appears in the list
of contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. It is also in
the Zeitung list and that of Quin. At that time he was practic-
ing Homœopathy at Comorre, Hungary.
JAECKEL, PRIOR. The name is on the Zeitung list of
1832, at which time he was at Erlau, Hungary. In Quin's list of
1834 he is: Prior Jaeckel, Erlau.
·
366
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
JAENGER. Was an early Homoeopathic practitioner of Col-
mar, France. The name is in Quin's list of 1834.
JAHR, GEORGE HEINRICH GOTTLEIB. He was one
of the contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which
date he was practicing at Neuwied in Prussia. His name ap-
pears on the Zeitung and Quin lists. The British Journal of
October, 1875, says that Jahr was born at Neudietendorf, a
small town in Saxony, in the year 1800. His youthful studies.
were made in a Moravian college, where he so distinguished
himself that when his education was complete he was offered a
professorship in the college, which he accepted. This was in
1825. How he became acquainted with Hahnemann about that
time is not known to us, but it is certain that he was employed
by the master to assist him in arranging his pathogeneses.
Hahnemann judged that Jahr's utility would be much increased
if he had a medical education, so he sent him to the University.
of Bonn, where Jahr completed his medical studies and took his
degree. During all the period of his studies he kept up a lively
correspondence with Hahnemann and helped in the work of the
Materia Medica. When he quitted Bonn he went to Liege to
practice, but when Hahnemann left Coethen for Paris his faith-
ful disciple and useful assistant followed the master to Paris,
where he continued until on the outbreak of the late war of 1870
he was forced to quit Paris and the practice he had acquired
there after upwards of thirty years' residence. He went to Bel-
gium; going first to Liege, then to Ghent, and finally to Brussels,
where he endeavored to obtain a practice, and delivered a course
of lectures at the homoeopathic dispensary. But not having a
Belgian deploma, he was prohibited from practicing in Belgium,
It is thought that this prohibition—which, in fact, deprived him
of his livelihood-weighed so much on his spirits that it hast-
ened his death, the immediate apparent cause of which was two
large carbuncles. His colleagues in Belgium entered on a sub-
scription to make up for his loss of professional income; but
though this relieved his pressing necessities, it was unable to
avert the fatal issue of his malady. The works of Jahr are almost
too well known to require enumeration. His chief work, "The
Symptomen Codex" and its abridgments, which have been
translated into every European language, will cause him to be
gratefully remembered by all practitioners of Homoeopathy.
OF HOMOEOPATHY
367
Some of his other writings are also of considerable value, as his
treatises on cholera, on cutaneous maladies, on venereal affec-
tions, on diseases of digestion, his "Pharmacopoeia," and his
"Forty Years' Practice."
Puhlmann says that: In 1835 we meet with Dr. George
Heinrich Gottlieb Jahr (born January 30th, 1800, died
July 11th, 1875. whose name has become very famil-
iar, and who, among others, has enriched the homo-
opathic literature with voluminous contributions which have
been translated into different languages,
different languages, His first work
was the "Manual of the Chief Indications for the Use of all known
Homœopathic Remedies in their General and Special Effect, ac-
cording to Clinical Experience, with a systematic and Alphabetic
Repertory." On account of its completeness it soon superseded
other similar works and was republished in four editions, and,
being much used by the German Homoeopathists, a revised edition
is now needed. In 1849 he published a "Complete Symptomen
Codex of the Homœopathic Materia Medica," and he has also pub-
lished several smaller works for daily use, "Clinical Advice”
"Clinical Guide," etc., which have been frequently republished.
Jahr deviated very luctantly from Hahnemann's dogmas; he
tried to revive those which modern science and the progressive
Homœopathists had long ago abandoned, and endeavored to
make them correspond with the newer views, or even ignored
the latter. He contributed largely to a certain homoeopathic
conservatism in Germany, which might not mislead a practical
homoeopathist but may frequently hinder one who is un-
acquainted with Homœopathy.
In the New England Medical Gazette for Sept., 1875, appeared
the following:
We commend to the younger members of the profession the
earnest perusal of the following biographical sketch sent us by
Messieurs Catellan of Paris. It is a fervid, but by no means
exaggerated tribute to a man whose love of learning, whose
patient and unselfish devotion to science, whose exalted sense of
professional honor, and simple rectitude stand in marked relief
from the sordid, grasping spirit, and the wretched indifference
to the true interests of our cause, which govern the lives and
characterize the labors of by far too large a proportion of
368
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Homœopathists throughout our section of the country.—
[EDITORS GAZETTE.]
On the 9th of July last, a letter dated at Brussels, informed us
that Jahr was seriously ill. Two days later a telegram announced
his death. This news has produced in Paris a profound emotion,
which re-echoes mournfully from every quarter of the globe, as
there is no country where the doctrines of Hahnemann do not
count numerous followers, and whither the writings of our friend
have not penetrated and rendered service. After the name of
Hahnemann, that of Jahr is indisputably the most widely known,
the most popular, and the most intimately associated with the
development and diffusion of Homœopathy.
Dr. Jahr was a scholar in the widest acceptation of the term,
as there is scarcely a branch of knowledge with which he was
not familiar. He found relaxation from his medical researches
in notable labors in physics, chemistry, mathematical sciences,
philosophy, astronomy, etc.; his erudition was truly immense,
and if he was not appreciated at his full value,-if in some
quarters the free acknowledgment of his superiority has been
partially withheld,-the reason must be looked for in his simplic-
ity of manner, and his modesty, qualities as precious as they
are rare, but which become faults when carried to extremes, as
they obscure the merit, and render unavailing the example of
wisdom and virtue. Under an exterior full of kindliness and
ease he concealed the rarest qualities; and those who have not
met him in private, and on an intimate footing, will doubt to
what degree this uncommon character was possessed of profound
knowledge, intellect, rectitude, and self-denial. It is right, in-
deed, it is essential, that all, especially the adherents of Homœ-
opathy, should be made fully acquainted with the merits of this
courageous pioneer, this gifted man and distinguished scholar;
and we deem ourselves fortunate to have been chosen to perform
this duty, in the name of the Société Médical Homeopathique de
France, and we herewith express our thanks to the president for
having imposed on us a task, which the consciousness of our
insufficiency at first prompted us to decline, and for having con-
sidered that to narrate the history of this life of labor and of
honor the heart might take the place of the head.
Dr. Jahr was born in Neu-dietendorf (Saxe-Gotha), in Janu-
ary, 1800.
He completed his classical education in the institu-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
369
tions of the Moravian Brethren, especially at Niesky, in Silesia,
and his success was so brilliant that be passed without a period
of transition from the benches of the students to the chair of the
professor. Having suffered from a serious illness during the
years of his professorship, he had recourse to Dr. Aegidi, the
distinguished Homoeopathist of Düsseldorf, who restored him
with unlooked for promptness, and this caused him to share the
enthusiasm for the doctrines of Hahnemann. At Dr. Aegidi's
instance he renounced the profession of teacher, and entered the
University of Bonn for the purpose of studying medicine.
Having graduated with honors, he presented himself, under the
auspices of Dr. Aegidi, to Hahnemann, whom he assisted in
compiling the work on "Chronic Diseases." After having been
for several years private physician to the Princess Frederic of
Prussia, he travelled to the south of France with the family of a
British nobleman, and lived successively at Pau, Marseilles, and
Lyons. But for some time Paris had held within its walls the
great reformer himself. Hahnemann had come to demand from
the great city, a refuge from persecution, and, perhaps, the
recognition of his genius. It was in Paris, therefore, by the
side of him whose most faithful and beloved disciple he was,
that Jahr cast his lot, and here he set himself to work with all
his courage and perseverance, consecrating his best efforts to the
labor of teaching and propagating the new doctrines upon which
his faith was fixed.
His works were numerous and, like those of Hahnemann, ap-
peared quite out of proportion to human strength. In order to
complete them he had need of a grand moral energy, profound
convictions and telents, which must be considered altogether ex-
ceptional. We are bound in duty, to demand for them the atten-
tion and respect of all. He published in the French language:
1834.—“ Manuel de Médicine Homeopathique," 4 volumes.
This manual passed through eight editions, from 1834 to '71.
1839.-"Notions Élémentaires de Homoeopathie."
further editions followed in 1844, 1855 and 1861.
Three
1841." Nouvelle Pharmacopée Homœopathique, I volume.
Followed by two further editions in 1855 and '62, in the prepara-
tion of which we rendered assistance. A fourth edition has
been in preparation for some time.
1842–45.—“ Annales de la Médicine Homœopathique. "Re-
370
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
cuil Mensuel avec la Collaboration du Docteur Léon Simon,
Père, et du Dr. Croserio.”
1848-" Du Traitment Homoeopathique du Choléra." Pamph-
let.
1850.-"Du Traitment Homoeopathique des Maladies de la
600 pp.
Peau."
<<
1854. Du Traitment Homoeopathique des Affections Ner-
veuses et Mentales. 660 pp.
1856. Traitment Homoeopathique des Maladies des Fem-
mes." 496 pp.
("
1857.-" Principes et régles qui doivent guider dans la Prati-
que de l' Homœopathie." 528 pp.
1858.—" Agenda Médical Homœopathique."
1859.—“Du Traitment Homoeopathique des Maladies des
Organs de Digestion." 520 pp.
1861-65.-Bulletin de l' Art de guérir, Journal Mensuel.
1871.-Eighth edition of the "Manuel de Médicine Homœo-
pathique." Printed at Brussels.
1875. "Guide Pratique à l' Usage des Commencants en
Homœopathie, Resumé de mes Quarante Années de Pratique,
d' Observation, et d' Etude."
Several of these works, especially the manual, were translated
into German, English and Spanish. Among the works he pub-
lished in German we mention:-
1837. Der Geist und die Ratio der Homöopathischen
Heilmethode.'
"}
((
1843. "Symptomen Codex," 3 large volumes of which the
French manual in four octavo volumes was merely an abridg-
ment.
1851–53.—“Anleitung in der Wahl der Homöopathischen
Heilmittel." This work passed through a large number of edi-
tions.
1854. "Klinische Anweisungen zur Homöopathischen Be-
handlung der Krankheiten.”
1855. "Homöopathische Behandlung der Geister Krank-
heiten."
"}
1857.-"Grundsätze der Hom. Heilmethode,'
1867.-" Die Venerischen Krankheiten." Translated into
English, French, Spanish and Italian.
1869.-"Practische Anweisung fär Anfanger in der Homöo-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
371
pathie Summarischer Ueberblick Einer Vierzig-jährigen Praxis,
Beobachtung und Studien."
1870. Rationelle Grundsätze der Hygiene."
Such is a brief review, with many gaps, of the homeopathic
publications* of this indefatigable pioneer. Every one of these
works have rendered, and are still rendering daily the most
precious service; but the most important of them all is, unques-
tionably, the manual in four volumes, a vast compendium, which
has now become classical, and which is indispensable to the
practitioner since the "Materia Medica Pura" of Hahnemann is
out of print. The eight editions of this manual-each one be-
ing unusually heavy-give unmistakable evidence of its value
and utility.
((
Jahr inspired all about him with unfeigned admiration by the
superiority of his intelligence and by the remarkable produc-
tions of his genius; but this admiration was not without alloy,
as he too persistently deserted the domestic circle, of which he
was the venerated chief, for his solitary study. His worship of
books conflicted seriously with the privileges of the fireside.
'How many times," writes the distinguished lady who was his
wife, “on learning that a work had been finished and sent to
the printer, have I pronounced the words 'at last' with a sigh of
relief? At last, a little repose, I have said, a little life in
common with family and friends—,some readings, a little relaxa-
But, alas! I always found myself indulging an illusion,
a vain hope; the next day a new work-a new memoir-took its
place upon his writing table, and absorbed all his time."
Work was for our friend an imperious necessity, -a real
passion which nothing could overcome. His mind, endowed
with an incomparable activity, knew no repose, and a prodigous
memory assisted to a marvellous degree his ardent desire for
knowledge. Every day he added to his store, in order to sow
the seeds for the advantage of the great medical truth proclaimed
by Hahnemann. Rest was for Jahr nothing more than change
of occupation; and one might truly say of him what Pliny said
* Besides his homeopathic works, Jahr published in German a large
number of works and memoirs, which attest the wide range of his erudition.
We recall only the following: "Abstract of German Grammar and Litera-
ture," 1828; "Poems Sacred and Profane," 1850; "Translation from the
Hebrew, in German Verse, of the Psalms of David and the Book of
Job," 1865; "Force and Matter," 1870, etc., etc.
372
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1
of the great Grecian painter: "Nulla dies sine linea.” Yet Jahr
commanded esteem and sympathy mainly by the affability
of his disposition, the originality of his mind, and the simple
rectitude of his heart. He held the broadest views and the
most elevated thoughts. He never knew the weakness of
vanity or the baseness of envy. Doomed to a retired and
humbled life, notwithstanding the most arduous labors and
extensive knowledge, he never allowed a harsh word to
escape him towards those who pursued the same path with
himself and whom fortune treated with great favor. He held
in pity those narrow presumptuous spirits who admit no merit
but their own, who consider themselves deserving of all success,
and who, when they find themselves disappointed in their desires,
revenge themselves for the success of others, however legitimate
this may be, by unjust attacks and unwarranted manoeuvres.
His ambition was limited by his necessities, and he knew, more-
over, how to find entire satisfaction in the testimony of his con-
science and in his consciousness of the services he was endeavor-
ing to render to the good cause.
He entertained the highest respect for professional dignity,
and anything approaching to boastfulness or claptrap filled him
with indignant resentment. Like the late Dr. Dours, whose
death we lately recorded, he insisted that all those who touch the
new doctrine are called upon to keep the strictest watch over
their actions and to beware of justifying, in any way, the accu-
sations of quackery, which, in default of argument, are so readily
launched against Homoeopathy and homoeopathists,
For thirty years he lived in a quiet, retired manner in Paris,
until the breaking out of the Franco-German war, when,
although not a Prussian, his friends advised his quitting Paris.
A Frenchman at heart, he tore himself reluctantly from his
adopted country and accepted at the hands of the Count de
Pitteurs the most cordial hospitality at the castle of Zepperen,
which must have recalled to him a similar kindness extended to
the founder of Homœopathy by the Duke of Anhalt-Koethen,
fifty years before. He remained there some months surrounded
by the warmest regard and affection, but the war being pro-
longed beyond all reasonable expectation, he felt it necessary to
take a decided course, and determined upon Brussels as his
future residence.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
373
During forty-five years he had tilled the soil of Homœopathy
with the most disinterested labor; for forty-five years he had
scattered the seeds into the furrows without demanding for him-
self any share in the harvest. His inclinations tended exclu-
sively towards science and the particular doctrine of which he
was one of the most ardent expounders. As his means had
always been limited, he was forced to resort once more to the
practice of his profession, after having installed himself in his
new home. He could confirm the proverb that forgetfulness of
self is but one remove from improvidence. Nevertheless it would
be unjust to accuse science of ingratitude or inability to support
her most fervent votary, and we must hasten to declare that our
friend was the sole author of those mediocre circumstances he
appeared to prefer. His charity outstripped his means, and
among his private papers have been found the indications of ex-
cessive generosity towards his co-religionists and compatriots.
Death has discovered the noblest and most touching of his
virtues.
He passed five years in Brussels, dividing his time between
his books, his practice, and the lectures he delivered at the
Dispensaire Hahnemann for the instruction of physicians and
students who came to investigate Homeopathy. But it was
brought to the knowledge of the authorities that he did not
possess the Belgian diploma required by law, and he was pro-
hibited from practicing, a harsh measure which barred the way
of his zeal and, what was worse for a man so far advanced in
years, it broke up the habit which had become an indispensable
necessity. This proved a fatal stroke for our friend. His health
already much depressed by the sufferings in France, became
more and more uncertain; his strength diminished rapidly, and
soon after his reverse he ceased to walk out. Two large, malig-
nant carbuncles broke out at once, the sufferings from which he
bore with stoical energy. Two days before his death, in the
plentitude of his intellectual faculties, he was seen to attempt
with trembling hands further work upon the writings he has
left unfinished and which will remain to us as the last witnesses
of his almost superhuman activity, and as the supreme efforts of
his powerful mind.
We would not be interpreting faithfully the sentiments of his
widow if we neglected to tell with what assiduity his Belgian
374
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
confrères. Hammelrath, Jules Gaudy, Martigny, and several
others hastened to him at the first signal; with what touching
devotion Dr. Hammelrath gave him his untiring care by day
and night; a devotion all the more meritorious as it was not with-
out danger. But the efforts of science and the solicitude of
friendship were to be unavailing. The disease was without a
remedy, the decree of death irrevocable, and, on the 11th of July,
Jahr ended his long and useful life, after having edified those
who wept about his bed by his firmness and resignation.
Jahr was doctor in medicine, philosophy, and divinity; for
many years he was a member of the Société Médicale Homœo-
pathique de France; his name figured among the honorary presi-
dents of the medical committee of the Hôpital Hahnemann; the
homoeopathic societies of all countries have inscribed his name
upon the lists of their corresponding members or foreign asso-
ciates, and, finally, the Government of Spain has bestowed upon
him the distinction of Knight of the Order of Charles III
("
Homœopathy will long continue to feel the blow it has now
met, as the void left by a man of his calibre is not easily filled.
Like the old Roman poet, Jahr could justly say, in casting his
last glances upon his works, non omnis moriar." Let us
determine that the noble example which has been left us by the
honest man, by the scholar, by the apostle, shall not be lost for
the great cause to which he had consecrated his life.
For us who were his assistants in a small portion of his work,
and whom he honored, during thirty-nine years, with his con-
fidence and constant friendship, we shall deem ourselves for-
tunate if these few pages written in profound sorrow may be
considered not unworthy of him, and if they can in any way
contribute to inspire reverence for his name, and to perpetuate
his memory.
CATELLAN FRÈRES,
Pharmaciens Homœopathes à Paris,
Membres de la Société Homœopathique de France.
The Homœopathic Times contains the following: One of the
most celebrated homoeopathic physicians, one of those whose
writings have powerfully aided in propagating our doctrine in
every country in the world, Dr. Jahr, has just died at Brussels,
at the age of 75 years.
From the remarks of M. Moreau, M. Hammelrath, and M.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
375
Seutin, as delivered at the grave, and published in the August
number of the Revue Homœopathique, we obtain the following
sketch of the life and labors of the deceased:
Jean Gottlieb Jahr was born the 30th of January, 1800, at
Neudetendorf, a little village in Saxony. His first studies were
made at the Institute of the Moravian Brethren, where his intel-
ligence and his aptitude were so remarkable that on leaving the
college he was offered the chair of professor, which he accepted.
This was in 1825. This date was a notable one in his life, be-
cause it was then that he encountered him whose influence de-
termined his vocation, and whose co-worker and friend he was
to become. Hahnemann was at this time in all the ardor of his
work upon
"Materia Medica." His studies of pathogeneses
occupied him entirely, and with characteristic shrewdness he
quickly discovered in Jahr the spirit of investigation and of
method which he was later to put to use. Now the young pro-
fessor was a complete stranger to all medical studies, but Hahne-
mann convincing him of the end to which his studies ought to
tend, the object he ought to strive for, induced him to study
medicine at the University of Bonn.
During his medical studies Homoeopathy was not neglected,
and the student of Bonn kept up a correspondence with the
doctor at Coethen. Having returned to Coethen with the title
of doctor, after an examination brilliantly sustained, he devoted
himself exclusively to the study of Materia Medica and thera-
peutics, which was to be the object of his life-long labors. He
attached himself to the founder of Homoeopathy for several
years; took an active part in the proving of several drugs, and
contributed powerfully in building up the work of Hahnemann,
which is and will always remain the monument of our doctrine.
This is an epoch in his life which Jahr loved to recall, knowing
well that it was to these studies with the Master that he owed
his profound knowledge of the symptoms of drugs and that
talent of individualization which he cultivated to such an ex-
tent.
After three years passed in the studies of pure science he came
to Liège, and aided by Dr. Malaise, he devoted himself for some
time to the practice of medicine. But Jahr's talent demanded a
larger sphere; Paris tempted him, where perhaps he was
attracted by the idea of rejoining his Master, then at the height
376
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of his glory. He went then to Paris, and for thirty-five years,
by his practice and his pen, he held high and firm the flag of
Homœopathy. Although a great favorite among his patients, he
found time to write a colossal work. His great "Manual of
Homœopathic Medicine" is, in truth, a work so considerable,
that it is necessary to have a complete initiation in Homœopathy
before reading it. Then to facilitate those commencing the study
of this science, of which he had had the courage to enravel the
chaos, Jahr did not delay in publishing a resumé of this book,
and it is this work which has become the vade-mecum of
every practitioner. The eight successive editions which this
treatise has had, sufficiently demonstrates its value. After these
works, which were enough to make a man famous, it would
seem as though Jahr ought to have been satisfied with himself,
and aspired to repose. But his mind of devouring activity must.
have appropriate food, therefore we see him commence the deep
study of almost all diseases and their treatment; and only to
cite his principal books we have: "The Homoeopathique Treat-
ment of Cholera;" Treatment of Affections of the Skin and
Exterior Lesious;" Homœopathic Treatment of Nervous
Affections and Mental Diseases;" that of "Diseases of Women;"
“Treatment of Diseases of the Digestive Organs;" that of the
"Venereal Diseases," and "The Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia."
These are the various practical treatises which the persevering
work of labor has left us. For the use of young physicians he
has published the principles and rules which ought to guide
them in the practice of Homoeopathy. More lately addressing
himself to all classes as he himself says, to all men of good faith
who wish to be convinced by essays of the truth of this doctrine,
he published elementary ideas with the most important effects of
ten principal remedies. Besides that he is the author of several
treatises which he proposed to translate into French.
Finally for two years a journal very highly thought of, Le
Bulletin de l'Art de Guêrir. These various works placed him
high in the scientific world; his renown extended everywhere;
besides the various scientific titles which had been bestowed
upon him, he received the decoration of the order of Charles III.
of Spain.
Having become a resident of Belgium in 1870, he went to
Liège, to Ghent, to Brussels, and there always on the alert for
((
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
377
the defence of his principles, and without any other desire than
the triumph of his doctrine, by his lectures, and by the cures he
performed, he caused the truth to shine.
For almost five years his zeal and devotion never ceased for an
instant, and the most cruel sufferings could scarcely force him to
rest.
During this time he has attended every day at the Hahnemann
Dispensary in Brussels, always ready to aid with his advice;
every Wednesday he gave a clinical course from which many
former opponents of our system obtained their first notion of
Hahnemannian therapeutics. Jahr had no diploma in Belgium.
His writings and his great scientific attainments ought to have
taken the place of a diploma. It was not so, however; the gov-
ernment forbade him to consultations, thus cutting off all his
resources. This was the finishing stroke to the already declin-
ing health of Prof. Jahr.
From this time his friends saw him fail in a very alarming
manner; his pupils remarked it; the Society of the Hahnemann
Dispensary assembled en masse and decided to make an appeal to
the Belgian homeopathic physicians to establish a pension in his
behalf.
The greater part immediately responded in contributing to the
subscription, the amount of which would have placed the pro-
fessor in easy circumstances.
Alas! he was not to profit by the good will of his pupils; he
soon succumbed and his system became much reduced, and two
large carbuncles made their appearance at the same time. Noth-
ing could arrest their destroying march, and Jahr died the 11th
of July, at II o'clock in the evening, retaining until the last mo-
ment all his faculties, and giving to his attendants indications
for the choice of remedies to promote his cure. Thus ended the
life of this most illustrious physician; the services he has ren-
dered Homœopathy will cause his name to be placed beside the
most illustrious.
S
The Zeitung account is as follows: One of the most cele-
brated of Homœopathic physicians, one of those whose writings
powerfully contributed to spread our doctrine in all countries of
this earth, Dr. Jahr, has just died in Brussels at the age of 75
His works are known to all Homœopathic physicians.
It would be unnecessary here to enumerate all the works by
years.
378
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
name, which make him worthy of the grateful remembrance of
the adherents to our doctrine. We leave it to others to describe
his general usefulness, but we esteem it our duty to enumerate
the services done by him to the Belgian physicians in par-
ticular.
Jahr lived in Belgium from 1870 till his death. During these
5 years he daily visited the policlinique, ever ready to assist us
with his advice; every Wednesday he gave clinical lectures to
several of our colleagues, and thus gave to them their first
knowledge of the Hahnemannian therapy. Before he came to
Brussels he had long lived in Paris, but being deeply occupied
with his scientific labors he had had only a limited practice.
The war between Germany and France compelled him to leave
Paris, and he came to us without any connections; he was most
heartily received by all Belgian Homoeopaths, who very often
consulted him in very severe cases; he was also frequently called
to consultations, the income from which satisfied his few wants.
Jahr had no diploma which would be received in Belgium.
His writings and their great scientific value ought to have sup-
plied the place of a diploma. But this was not acknowledged.
The authorities forbade him to continue his consultations, and
thus cut off all his income. This was the death-blow to Jahr,
whose health had before been much affected; from this moment
we saw him failing to an alarming degree; his pupils were con-
founded; the society of the "Dispensaire Hahnemann" called an
emergency meeting and determined to appeal to all the Homœo-
pathic physicians of Belgium, in order to secure to him a yearly
salary. The greater number at once consented by signing the
subscription paper, the amount of which would have freed our
colleague from all financial anxieties.
But it was decreed that he should not draw any benefit from
the gratitude of his pupils; he was soon confined to his bed and
lapsed into a state of weakness; at the same time there appeared
two gangrenous carbuncles. Nothing could stem their progress
and Jahr succumbed on the 11th of July, at II P. M., still retain-
ing his intelligence unimpaired to the last moment, advising us
as to the choice of remedies, which as he thought would restore
his health. His last words were thanks for the care with which
he had been tended, especially to one of his pupils, Dr. Hammel-
rath, who nursed him till his death with rare devotion.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
379
His funeral was celebrated in the Evangelical church, to which
he belonged in Belgium; the attendance was not numerous-
Jahr was too little known in Belgium-but the audience was a
select one; all the homoeopathic doctors, pharmacists and veter-
inary surgeons of Brussels and a large number of colleagues
from the province, showed him the last honor. The Drs.
Moreau, Hammelrath and Pharmaceutist Leutin delivered
affecting addresses at his grave, thus showing honor to his
memory.
We give a verbatim report of the address of Dr. Moreau: Death
has no pity. It rages irrisistibly in our ranks, and it would
seem that merit and scientific attainments are the shining marks
by which death recognizes its victims. The loss we suffer to-day
is irreparable; Prof. Jahr is no more. May it be granted me, in
the face of his mortal remains, to show him the last and highest
honor.
J
Johann Gottlieb Jahr was born January 30, 1800, in Neu-
dietendorf, a small town of Thuringia. He received his first in-
struction in the institute of Mr. Heiter in that place. His
capacity and ability so distinguished him there that he was
offered a professorship. He accepted it in 1825. This date is of
importance for his life, because in this year he learned to know
the man whose influence determined his vocation, and whose
collaborator and friend he was destined to become. Hahnemann
was at that time zealously occupied with the elaboration of his
(6 'Materia Medica Pura." He was altogether occupied with his
studies concerning the pathogeneses, and with his genius for
discovery by which he was distinguished he must soon have
recognized in Jahr the genius for investigation and the method,
which later on should prove of use to him.
But the young pro-
fessor was a total stranger to the study of medicine, therefore
Hahnemann sent him to the university in Boun to study medi-
cine, pointing out to him the goal to which he should direct his
studies and the point of view which he must seize upon. During
the whole time of his study Jahr in no way neglected Homo-
opathy, and the student in Bonn had repeated correspondence
and conversations with the doctor in Coethen. Having returned
to Coethen with a doctor's diploma, and having honorably passed
his strict examinations, he devoted himself exclusively to the
study of the "Materia Medica Pura" and therapy, which were
380
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
destined to become the object of his lifelong study. He asso-
ciated for several years with the founder of Homoeopathy, took
a lively part in the proving of several medicines and powerfully
contributed to the completion of the building up of the work of
Hahnemann, which will evermore remain the foundation of our
doctrine. Jahr with predilection recalled this period, because he
well knew that to these studies with his master he owed his
thorough knowledge of medicinal effects and his talent for in-
dividualizing cases. After having occupied himself for three
years with pure science, he came to Liege, where he, supported
by Dr. Malaise, devoted himself for some time to medical
practice. But the talents of Jahr required a larger sphere.
Paris attracted him, or perhaps he was drawn thither by the
desire of meeting there his teacher, who then was at the zenith
of his fame. So he went to Paris and for thirty-five years he
there firmly and loftily upheld the banner of Homoeopathy, as
well by his practice as by his pen. Though highly favored by
the public, he yet found the time to compass an astonishing
colossal work. His large
His large "Manual of Homoeopathic Practice"
(Codex of Symptoms) is a work of such calibre that it even pre-
supposes a pretty thorough acquaintance with Homoeopathy to
peruse it understandingly. To facilitate the study of this science
even for beginners, Jahr also published a summary of this work
after having himself mastered the chaos of this science; and this
summary has become the vade-mecum of every practitioner. The
eight editions through which it has passed show its value.
(Clinical Directions for the Homoeopathic Treatment of Patients.)
After these works, which would suffice to render a man famous,
one might suppose that Jahr might have been content and have
settled down to rest. But his spirit, his consuming activity
needed nourishment, so we see him investigating nearly all
diseases and their treatment. To cite only the titles of his
works, he has written on: The Homœopathic treatment of cholera;
the treatment of cutaneous diseases and of external wounds;
the Homœopathic treatment of diseases of the nerves and of the
mind; treatment of the disease of women; treatise on the
diseases of the digestive organs; lastly, the veneral diseases and
the Homœopathic pharmacopoeia. These are the various practical
treatises which the bee-like industry of Jahr has bequeathed to
For the use of younger physicians he also published the
us.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
381
principles and rules which must be followed in Homoeopathic
practice. Later on, turning to the laymen, he left elementary
directions as to the most important medicinal effects for all well-
disposed people who desire to convince themselves of the truth
of the doctrine through experiments. Besides this, he wrote
several treatises which he intended also to translate into French.
He also for two years published a very valuable journal, Le
Bulletin de l'Art de Guérir. His various works gave him a name
in the learned world; his fame spread into all the regions of the
world. Besides the various honorary titles granted him by various
scientific societies, he also received the order of Charles III., of
Spain.
"Since 1870 he has been the guest of Belgium; he visited
Liege, Ghent and Brussels. Here he showed himself ever ready to
defend his principles, and without any other end but the triumph
of his doctrine he endeavored to secure the triumph of truth by
the word of his mouth and through the cures which he effected.
For the last five years his zeal and devotion flagged not a
minute, and only severe sufferings could force him to take a
temporary rest. When death surprised him, he had met the
finishing touches to his work of Therapy' which, as I hope,
will not be lost to us.
(6
A last word. At this time when our doctrine is everywhere
being established, while hospitals are being founded and are
thriving, let us not forget him, who in his writings and lectures
ever labored for the realizing of this idea. As a modest laborer,
he cleared the way and has made it possible for others to follow
it successfully. This is the time to mention this fact, and it
would be unjust to deny him this recognition.
What may I still add concerning his character which you
have not known as well as I have? Viewing his long life, full
of labor, his devotion of every leisure moment, does it not prove
the motto of Seneca: Non bonum est vivere sed bene vivere? In
short, he has lived a noble life. He has passed over into the
other life like his teacher, leaving behind him the shining track
of his talent and the example of a life full of labor and self-
denial.
"
Farewell, dear master, you leave us, but you will not be for-
gotten. A man will not die altogether, if like you, on reviewing
his past life, he can exclaim, Haec mea sunt ornamenta, these
382
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
are my jewels, these are my works, immortal and imperish-
able works, because they are founded on science and on truth.
T. K.
From the Populaire Zeitschrift: On the 11th of July of this
year inexorable death ended the life of a man whose name is
closely involved in the history and development of Homœopathy
-i. e., the author and homoeopathic physician, Dr. G. H. G.
Jahr.
Sprung from a Moravian family in Neudiettendorf, where he
was born on the 30th of January, 1800, he learned shoemaking.
Later on he attended the Gymnasium at Niesky, in Silesia, and
between 1820 and 1830 he became a teacher in a school at Dussel-
dorf. Through the homoeopathic pharmacist, Thraen, in Neudie-
tendorf, he had early become acquainted with Homoeopathy and
had devoted many a leisure hour to the study of the works that
had up to that time appeared concerning this subject. He
therefore soon made friends with Dr. Aegidi, who had been ap-
pointed in Dusseldorf as physician-in-ordinary to the Princess.
Frederick of Prussia. His intercourse with this distinguished
physician awakened in him the desire of changing his vocation.
Jahr was without means; he determined, therefore, to accumu-
late some money for this purpose. His practical eye had noticed
for some time already that there was no good directory in the
labyrinth of homoeopathic materia medica. He had on this ac-
count, some time before this, compiled with much labor a reper-
tory in the form of excerpts from Hahnemann's 'Materia
Medica," and from the "Chronic Diseases," and he hoped that
he might be enabled to put to use this epitome. Contrary to
his expectations, he could not find any publisher for this work,
for von Bonninghausen, Rueckert, Schweikert and others had
already published similar works, and it was only when several
homoeopathic physicians applied to the Master, Hahnemann, and
he had approved of the arrangement and execution of the work,
that J. C. Shaub, a publisher in Dusseldorf, who had become
acquainted with the ability for literary work shown by this author,
through a philological work from his hand which had appeared
in the year 1828, determined to publish the book. It appeared
in the year 1835, with the title: "Handbuch der Hauptanzeigen
fuer die richtige Wahl der homeopatischen Heilmittel oder
Saemmtliche zur Zeit nähergekaunte homöopatische Arzueien
**
OF HOMEOPATHY.
383
in ihren Haupt and Eigenwirkengen nach den bisherigen
Erfahrungen am Krankenbette und nict einem systematisch-
alphabetischen Repertoir verschen von G. H. G. Jahr"
("Manual of the Chief Indications for the Correct Choice of
Homœopathic Remedies, or Summary of the Homoeopathic
Remedies That Are Generally Known at the Present Time, with
Their Chief and Peculiar Effects, According to Clinical Experi.
ences Up to This Time, and Supplied with a Systematic Alpha-
betical Repertory, by G. H. G. Jahr'). This work contained all
the 143 remedies proved up to that time, on 476 pages, each remedy
being succinctly and briefly, but at the same time very accurately
characterized. The work was generally approved, for it filled a
want, because von Bonninghausen, in his work, which is com-
piled in a very similar manner, had only treated of the antipsoric
remedies, while Jahr had included all. The work was soon
translated into English and French, and Jahr thereby acquired
the means for prosecuting his studies at the University of Bonn.
But he did not stay there very long—at least not the full period
of three years required, for the Princess Frederick called him to
Dusseldorf because Dr. Aegidi had temporarily resigned his
position. Disputes with the medical authorities because he had
also treated other persons than those belonging to the retinue of
the princess, as also differences respecting scientific points, aris-
ing between him and Dr. Aegidi—who in the meantime had re-
turned to Dusseldorf-caused him to definitely resign his posi-
tion and accompany a rich Englishman as his attendant physician
to the south of France, and since Samuel Hahnemann had in
the meantime emigrated to Paris, he determined to make this
city his abode for the future; for he had also come into closer
relations with the Master, owing to his assistance in the publi-
cation of the "Chronic Diseases." As Hahnemann, through
the intervention of Minister Guizot, had been spared the trouble
of undergoing a second medical examination before being allowed
to practice, owing to the fact that he was an approved medical
author, a similar exception was made in favor of Jahr. He
lived there till 1870, and in this space of thirty years he was the
author of numerous works, which were translated into almost all
the cultured languages. Jahr was gifted with an extraordinary
industry and spared no pains to produce a permanently perfect
work, using his first work as a foundation. His second work is
W
384
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
known as "the middle Jahr." His detailed
His detailed "Codex of Symp-
toms of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica" (price, 42 marks,
bound) is called "the great Jahr;" his "Clinical Directions"
(price, 5 marks) "the little Jahr." Besides this, he composed
a "Manual for Homoeopathic Practice " (price, bound, 1½
marks). Of his other larger works we will only enumerate
"The Teachings and Principles of the Entire Theoretical and
Practical Homoeopathic Therapeutics" (price, bound, 8 marks);
the "General and Special Therapeutics of Mental Diseases"
(price, bound, 8.50 marks); the "Venereal Diseases" (price,
bound, 6.80 marks); "The Rational Hygiene for Everybody "
(price, bound, 5.25 marks). Exclusively in the French language
there appeared a "Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia," elaborated by
him in common with the brothers Catellan. In addition, during the
years 1842-1845, he in common with Dr. Simon, edited a journal,
Annales de la Médecine Homeopathique, and from 1861-1865 a
Bulletin de l' Art de Guérir. Jahr is a master of the subjects.
he treats of, and this in every direction; he shows an immense
amount of reading, but is unwilling to depart from Hahne-
mann's teachings, so that he must be regarded as one of the most
genuine and faithful disciples of the Master. In the dynamiza-
tion of medicines he recognizes the salvation of Homœopathy
and is therefore in diametrical opposition to the school of Muel-
ler, Kafka and Hirschel, whose chief exponent, Hirschel, consid-
ers it a misapprehension to ascribe to the small doses the very
essence of Homœopathy. Jahr, in his earlier years, repeatedly
took up the pen against the representatives of the specific
tendency, especially against the memorable Griesselich, through
whom Homœopathy was so much advanced scientifically, but
who in his skepticism regarded everything coming from Hahne-
mann with suspicion. He also spoke warmly against his former
friend, Aegidi, for the same reason, and remarked: God forbid
that the number of such Homœopaths should increase; we con-
sider it our duty to protest against them more than against
Allopathy. But he only did this because he honored Hahne-
mann exceedingly. But Jahr was also active in other directions.
In the year 1850 there appeared from his hand a volume of
poems, chiefly of a religious nature, and in 1865 a poetical trans-
lation of the Psalms of David and of the Book of Job.
In the year 1870 he, in common with all Germans, was ex-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
385
pelled from France, and when 70 years old he had to leave his
second fatherland, after having for years labored in a disinter-
ested manner in a public hospital in Paris. He turned to
Brussels, where he found a most friendly reception on the part
of the Homœopathic physicians there. But like an aged tree
which sickens when its roots are torn out of the earth and when
it is transplanted into a strange soil, so the old man pined away
in a foreign land. A severe blow to him was the prohibition
from practicing, owing to his not possessing a Belgian diploma.
There is something of longing in his poetic greeting to his native
land which he had left so long ago, in the poem entitled "To
Germany. A festive gift in honor of the foundation of its new
empire in the year 1871." To his dying day he was occupied
with literary work. He left a large work uncompleted. Weak
with age, he was seized with a carbuncle in the summer of 1875.
With stoical calm he bore the tortures caused by his disease, and
retaining to the last his clear mental provers he expired on
July 11th at II P M., in the arms of his friend, Dr. Hammelrath,
who, with little intermission, had watched at his sick-bed, only
occasionally relieved by Dr. Gaudy and Dr. Martigny. May
the ground rest lightly upon his ashes! A grateful memory is
assured to him in the hearts of all Homoeopaths.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
In various quarters it has caused some surprise that a man of
the distinction of Dr. Jahr should have been forbidden to practice
by the Belgian Government, while he was able to show a fruit-
ful practical activity for 30 years; and some have been inclined
to ascribe this prohibition to a certain opposition to Homo-
opathy on the part of this government. But this is not the case.
The Belgian laws in this matter exactly agree with the German
laws: Every foreign physician is required to again undergo an
examination, and since Jahr had never undergone such an ex-
amination either in Germany or in France he was not, properly
speaking, an approved physician, though not by any means a
layman. These same facts had caused his attempt to practice in
German Switzerland to fail. The career of Jahr is in some re-
spects similar to that of the royal Councilor Dr. v. Bonning-
hausen and of the Sanitary Councilor Dr. Lutze. The former
received the privilege of practicing from the King of Prussia,
owing to his success as author, and the latter, formerly a postal
-
386
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
secretary, received the same from the Duke of Anhalt-Coethen
on account of his practical successes. Lutze acquired the title of
medical doctor only later on from the university of Jena. Twenty
years ago this title was just as cheap in Jena and Goettingen as
it is still at this day in Jersey and in Philadelphia. But all three
of these men have done much for Homoeopathy, but especially
Jahr. No rational man will, therefore, ask what Jahr had been
before, but what he became and what he has accomplished !
(Hom. World., vol. 10, p. 469. World's Con., vol. 2, p. 36. Hahn.
Monthly, vol. II, p. 182. Am. Jour. Hom. Mat. Med., vol. 9, p.
114. N. E. Med. Gaz., vol. 10, p. 427. Hom. Times, vol, 3, p.
139. O. Med. Surg. Rep., vol. 9, p. 301. Brit. Jour. Hom.,
vol. 33, p. 756. Anales de la Hom. 'a. Bogota., Aug., 1876.
Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 91, p. 71. Revista Homœopatica, vol. 21, p.
179. El Crit. Medico, vol. 16, pp. 355, 473 (biography.) Bibl.
Hom., vol. 7, pp. 255, 312. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 151, 401. Revue.
Hom. Belge, Aug., 1875. Pap. Zeit. Jour. Hom., vol. 6, p. 138.)
JAMM. Practiced at Lahr in Baden, at which place he was
located in 1832. His name is on the Zeitung list.
JANER, FELIX. Was a friend of Dr. Folch, who was director
and dean of the faculty at Barcelona, and professor of clinical
medicine. When Folch, in 1832, returned from Germany he
found that for some time Dr. Janer had been practicing Homœ-
opathy. Janer had for years suffered with a chronic affection
that had many times kept him in bed. He went to Madrid for
the attention of Dr. Joseph Nunez, the homoeopathic doctor. He
recovered under that treatment. On his return to Barcelona,
Janer adopted this method in the clinic of the hospital and in his
private practice, without entirely renouncing the methods of the
old school. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 180.)
JEANES, JACOB. The following record is taken from the
"Transactions of the American Institute of Homœopathy for
1878:" There has never been recorded by the institute the death
of a man more deserving of honorable obituary, more thoroughly
entitled to be called a good man, more mild-mannered, modest
and unobtrusive, than that of the revered Jacob Jeanes, M. D.,
whose death occurred December 18, 1877, of apoplectic seizure, in
his 78th year. We cannot do better than here to transcribe an
address delivered before the members of the Philadelphia County
OF HOMEOPATHY.
387
Homœopathic Medical Society by its president, Dr. R. J. Mc-
Clatchey, upon the occasion of a meeting called on the evening
of December 20th to do honor to the memory of their venerable
and venerated departed colleague, together with the action of
the society at the same time. It is as follows:
The President of the Society, Dr. R. J. McClatchey, after call-
ing the meeting to order, addressed the members as follows:
Fellow-Members of the County Medical Society and Fellow-Practi-
tioners:
We are called together on a sad occasion. Death, who with
equal foot strikes wide all doors, has been very busy of late with
our notable men. Within the brief space of a twelvemonth,
Hausmann and Von Grauvogl, in Europe, and Carroll Dunham,
in America, have been called from their labors in this world to
the life beyond; but just now we have been told that Clotar
Müller, who was with us at our World's Convention, has also
been called from this sphere of usefulness to meet his confréres
in heaven, and we have met to-night to lament the loss and show
respect to the memory of one who, after a long career of useful-
ness, quietly closed his eyes upon this world on Tuesday last,
to open them upon that new and brighter vista-the heavenly
rest.
He was familiar to us all. His Homoeopathic medical life
embraces almost the entire history of Homœopathy in Philadel-
phia and in America, and in all its various epochs and phases
he was a conspicuous figure. In its early practice and promul-
gation; in the establishment of its respectability; in the organ-
ization of its societies, colleges, hospitals, and other institutions:
in the enlargement and development of its materia medica; in
the elevation of its literature; in the instruction of its students;
in the cultivation of amenities and ethics among its practitioners;
in the setting a good example to his fellows; and, in fact, in all
places where it was honorable for him to be, and in all depart-
ments of usefulness, he was prominent as a worker, although
with so much modesty, with so much unobtrusiveness, with so
remarkable an absence of egotism and self-love, that other men,
with less, much less, real merit, but with a larger share of self-
assertion, came to occupy in professional eyes the more conspicu-
ous place, until the work of all these early practitioners began
to be weighed and measured and valued, and then that of Dr.
-
388
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Jeanes was placed at its proper price, and he received the palm
which he had earned, not, however, without the powder.
He was familiar to us all as a member, an active, efficient,
working member of our Society, a regular debater, and a reader
of carefully considered and ably-prepared papers, and an attend-
ant whose place was rarely vacant except when he was too ill to
attend. He was for several successive terms our presiding
officer, although, as he always said, he preferred the floor to the
chair. We all know what a kindly nature his was; what a
catholic spirit he had; how tolerant of the opinions of others,
and how free in the expression of his own views. He was ever
among the earliest in his place, among the most attentive of the
auditory, giving as careful heed to the remarks of the youngest
as to the utterances of the elders of the profession. His vener-
able head would bow in thoughtfulness ere he rose to speak, and
then his views were given to his fellows with the utmost calm-
ness, clearness and precision, and withal with a certain winning
force, if I may be allowed to use the expression, which had a
marked effect. It is the truth that the influence of this man was
a winning one; he did not push his hearers into his opinions, or
force them to adopt his views by excluding from them all others;
but he gently, mildly, quietly, but powerfully, led them to follow
him. But his familiar presence will soon be to us a thing of the
past; the place where he sat will know him no more forever;
and yet when we think of the long life of usefulness and of good-
ness, and of his peaceful death, and of his ever-living future, we
should not mourn, while we may feel his loss and regret the
severance of long-time association.
Dr. Jacob Jeanes was born October 4th, 1800. His literary
education was completed in Philadelphia, when he was about
nineteen years old. He then returned to the "old farm,” or old
homestead, where he remained for about two years.
On one occasion his father met the young man's old preceptor
in the street, and in a conversation about young Jeanes the
latter remarked that it was "a pity to bury such talent in the
dirt,'' alluding to the retirement of the young man to his country
home. The father, doubtless, pondered these words, and this
led to his being placed under the preceptorship of the dis-
tinguished Dr. Joseph Parrish, one of the then Faculty of the
University of Pennsylvania, with whom he studied medicine.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
389
three years, attending lectures also at the University. He
graduated Doctor in Medicine from this time honored institution
in 1823. He practiced as an allopathic physician during the
ensuing twelve years, during which period he was for several
years physician to the Almshouse and the Philadelphia Dis-
pensary.
He was attracted to Homoeopathy by seeing notices of it oc-
casionally in the medical journals and other periodicals, and,
doubtless, too, by hearing cases of cures related by the laity;
probably by members of the Society of Friends, of which he
was a member, since that intelligent people were among the very
first to espouse Homoeopathy as a superior system of medical
practice.
So great was his interest in the new system that he set him-
self the task of learning the German language, that he might
study the works of Hahnemann, there being at that time no
translations of the standard works on Homoeopathy.
By degrees he became convinced of the correctness of Hahne-
mann's doctrines, remarking ere long, to use his own words
"There is something in this." He continued his investigations,
however, during a period of eighteen months, at the end of
which time he became so thoroughly convinced of the truth of
the new practice, that he at once adopted it as his method of
treating the sick thereafter. This occurred in the year 1835.
In 1838 he published a work on practice of great value.
pity that he could not be induced to issue a new edition of this
work in his later years, for he had a vast stock of experience
from which to draw, some of which was unique, and all of it
valuable.
It is a
Dr. Jeanes was one of the original members of the American
Institute of Homœopathy, and its president in 1845. He served
very efficiently for several years as a member of the Bureau of
Materia Medica of the Institute, or Central Bureau, as it was
formerly called, and in this capacity made many provings. We
owe our knowledge of Benzoic acid chiefly to Dr. Jeanes, and
our knowledge of many other drugs is also due in whole or in
part to his devoted labors.
He was one of the founders of the Homoeopathic Medical
College of Pennsylvania in 1848, and was Professor of the
390
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Principles and Practice of Medicine in that institution in the
years 1848-49.
Such is a brief history of the character and work of the
revered colleague who has been called away. It is our duty,
well as our mournful pleasure, on this occasion, to testify to his
worth and to our feelings in regard to his decease, by the adop-
tion of preambles and resolutions expressive of the same, and
by paying individual tributes to his worth.
Dr. Henry N. Guernsey moved that the address of the Presi-
dent be adopted by the society, by a rising vote, as expressive
of the opinion of its members in regard to the character and
merits of Dr. Jeanes and of their feeling in regard to his death.
Dr. Bushrod W. James seconded the motion of Dr. Guernsey,
and it was therefore adopted unanimously, the members rising.
Dr. Augustus Korndorfer then offered the following preamble
and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:
"WHEREAS, It hath pleased the Almighty to remove from
our midst, through death, our revered fellow-member Dr. Jacob.
Jeanes, and
"WHEREAS, In his life we recognize that of the true man, in
kindness, goodwill, and earnestness, only excelled by its purity,
and
WHEREAS, In his death we, as a society and as individuals,
have suffered an almost irreparable loss, therefore
((
Resolved, That this society extend to his widow most heart-
felt sympathy in this her sore affliction, yet with the feeling that
words can but poorly express our sense of this double loss to ber
and to us. We would share though we may not lighten the
grief. True comfort can only be derived through that faith.
which has power not only to alleviate but may even even sanc-
tify our sorrows.
The President then appointed six pall-bearers, whereupon the
society adjourned.
Dr. Korndoerfer, of Philadelphia, thus described his last ill-
ness to the members of the American Institute: It became my
painful duty during the latter part of last year to attend Dr.
Jeanes in his last illness. For years we held almost the rela-
tionship of father and son; at no time did I ever know him to
fail as a friend. In his life, which was beautiful, he was faith-
ful to the utmost. As a homœopathic physician I had always
"}
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
391
known him to be in all things conscientious; as a medical ob-
server he had few equals; his carefulness in relation to every-
thing he did connected with Homoeopathy, was unequalled.
About three years ago came the beginning of the end of his
life. For many years he had been a sufferer from diabetes, but
he was finally stricken down with senile gangrene, from which
after about three months of attention, he recovered; and he then
requently remarked to me that he felt like a new man, being so
much better. During that attack he suffered from an apoplectic
condition, which afterwards entirely subsided.
The evening of the day of his fatal attack was spent by him in
comfort, health and the best of spirits. Among the last words
he spake were words of affection to his wife-words of cheerful-
ness and of hearty comfort. He retired, fell asleep, and his wife
awoke to find him unconscious. He never spoke again; the
stupor became complete; he lingered a few hours and then went
to his reward. His was one of the most conscientious of lives,
and in his death his earnest wish was gratified. In one of his
last conversations with those he loved, he expressed a wish that
he should not be compelled to drag out a useless old age. He
said: "While I am of use I wish to live, but when my time of
usefulness is gone I wish to die quickly, that I may give no
trouble to those whom I leave."
His whole desire was to do good to others and that even his
death might not be a burden to any one; that he might pass
from the world without much attention. His great anxiety
in regard to speaking in our medical meetings and in writing
for our journals was lest people might think he craved
notoriety. His greatest fear was that too much might be said
about what he did. None of his invaluable observations went
into print through his own direct agency. They were freely
given in the meetings of our society, and it was thus that we
became possessed of his many provings. I have the manuscript
of his provings made during a period of forty years, and in that
book one can read the whole life of Dr. Jeanes.
A writer in Progress thus eulogizes him: Dr. Jeanes belonged
to one of the oldest families of Friends. He was the brother in-
law of the Hon. Charles Brown, a distinguished public man, who
filled with great distinction the positions of State Senator, Repre-
sentative in Congress and Collector of the Port of Philadelphia,
-
392
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
*
and the doctor's sister, Mr. Brown's wife, is still living in re-
tirement in this city. Three of his brothers and two sisters still
survive him and it is note-worthy that all five are unmarried.
The impress of his character is still felt by his friends. *
Dr. Jeanes lived a life of cheerful toil. He died with a large
clientage and won the highest place among his associates by his
toleration, amenity, gentleness, unselfishness and patience. His
learning, experience and amiable perseverance made him a
power to obey and an influence to love. He was the good phy-
sician, never allowing his right hand to know what the left one
did, never dogmatic nor vainglorious, and yet always prompt in
going good to others, especially to the poor and needy. The
number he attended gratuitously were legion; and when he
died he left the request that all who felt that they were indebted
to him for medical services could pay the amount as a donation
to the Homœopathic Hospital. (Trans. Am. Inst. Hom., 1878.
Am. Hom. Obs., vol. 16, p. 581. Hahn. Monthly., April, 1878.
N. Y. Hom. Times, vol. 5, p 289. Trans. Hom. Soc. Penna.,
1874-78.)
*
JENICHEN, CASPAR JULIUS. It was Gross who induced
Jenichen, of Wismar, a zealous homoeopathic amateur, to prepare
317 dilutions of the usual remedies varying from the 200th to
the 900th, and even to the 1500th. A writer in the British
Journal concerning the history of high potencies says: It seems,
then, that Herr Jenichen, to whom Gross entrusted the prepara-
tion of the high dilutions, being a stallmeister (or horse trainer,
as some say) by profession, and possibly from his connection
with the stable, anxious to make a good thing of the trust re-
posed in him, even at the risk of appearing to jockey Gross and the
rest, makes a great secret of his mode of preparing these high
dilutions-gives out that no one can prepare them but himself—
calls those fools who pretend to be able to make them, and
actually persuades his patron, Gross, and some others, among
the rest Stapf and Hering, to swear by his preparations alone.
and to join with him in condemning all others. While Jenichen
was keeping secret his high dilution making, Rummel employed
an apothecary in Dessau, named Petters, to make some high
dilutions, and these he declared to be as successful as Jenichen's.
He also found medicinal atom, in them when they were placed
OF HOMEOPATHY.
393
under the solar microscope. He defended them in the Allge-
meine hom. Zeitung; Hering answers him that his Pettersian
preparations are useless. This was the battle of the potencies.
Then Hering read the diatribe about high potencies and wrote
to the editor of the British Journal the following: I must
vindicate Jenichen. This, however, belongs to the secret history
of Homœopathy. Jenichen made no secret
secret of the mode
of preparing the high dilutions, and it never entered into his
head to make money by it, or a mystery of it. He invented and
discovered, and on seeing greater curative effects from these
preparations he sent samples of them to Stapf and Gross. To
me also, but they were not sent to me until late in the autumn
of 1844. Stapf put his box in the corner. Gross at last ex-
perimented on his horse. It was on horses that Jenichen per-
formed most of his cures. Gross induced Stapf to experiment.
Gross now published his first paper. In this he mentioned
Jenichen as the preparer, not as the inventor or discoverer.
Jenichen is a diligent investigator and an enthusiast and possesses.
a great knowledge of remedies. He was infuriated by the first
paper and demanded satisfaction. Stapf and I were to be
umpires. He wrote me all about it. In the meantime Rummel
was angry that he had not received samples; he makes a great
noise and sets poor Petters in motion. I interfere in a good
humored way, and so forth. During this time Jenichen grows
more obstinate and more angry. He assures me he will show
me everything, describe how he does it, but first must have
satisfaction. On this mutual recriminations take place, and now
he preserves stubborn silence. He will first have an opinion
with regard to the efficacy of his preparations. He will first
let the dispute subside. I might, without breaking my word,
reveal the chief part of the business, but I, too, consider it bet-
ter that it remains concealed until a sufficient number of wit-
nesses come forward and testify that Jenichen's preparations are
better and much more powerful than: 1. All former preparations
up to 30. 2. All the imitations of his high potencies; and
further, Gross shall publicly declare he does not know how they
are made, cannot prepare them himself, and has not aided in
their preparation, either by thought or suggestion.
As soon as I have a thousand cures I shall treat of them in a
separate work after the calculation of probability. It will be years
-
394
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
hence before this takes place. You have found fault with Stapf
on account of the double impression of Korsakoff's letter-that is
not difficult to explain. Korsakoff and Hahnemann themselves
insisted on it, and had Stapf as editor, exonerated himself, he
could not have done so without inculpating Hahnemann. But
with his accustomed generosity he remained silent.
One of the editors of the British Journal writing from Ger-
many in October, 1850, says: Jenichen the redoubtable stall-
meister shot himself last year, but previously to doing so he
made a will leaving 12,000 thalers for the foundation of a
homoeopathic dispensary in Wismar, to be conducted by some
physician who should practice exclusively with his (Jenichen's)
high dilutions. Dr. Stapf, of Neunburg, was commissioned to
nominate the physician, and he appointed Dr. Rentsch, of Pots-
dam, who is now settled in Wismar, and, it is said, has inherited
the secret of preparing the high potencies, which he will be
happy to supply to any practitioner who may require them, pro-
vided the money is first sent.
In Dr. Stapf's house we saw a full-sized portrait of the hero
Jenichen stripped to the waist to show his muscular frame, and
holding the magic vessel (a 4 oz. bottle), in which he made
the fluid rattle "like silver coins" by the impulse of his hercu-
lean arm.
At a Congress of Homœopathic Practitioners held at Leipzig at
the unveiling of Hahnemann's monument, in 1851, Dr. Rentsch
gave an account, as far as he was able from letters and papers
left by Jenichen, of Jenichen's method of preparing the high
potencies. He took the 29th dilution of the ordinary Hahnemann-
ian preparations and allowed it to stand with the cork out of
the bottle until it was all evaporated. Commencing from this for
his zero he proceeded to make his high potencies, sometimes with
the usual proportion of one drop of medicine with 99 of alcohol,
but latterly always with a much larger quantity of the diluting
fluid; at last, as it appeared, with the proportion of 12,000 drops
of alcohol to two drops of the previous dilution, and with a num-
ber of succussions to each dilution varying from ten to thirty.
The bottles he used were of such a size that the dilution filled
them only to one-third, and the rower he expended on his prepa-
rations must have been considerable, as his strength was hercu-
lean, and he worked with all his might every night, from ten
OF HOMEOPATHY.
395
o'clock till three in the morning. He used but one bottle for
each medicine, and employed French brandy for his diluting
medium.
The following is from the British Journal of Homeopathy: In
our last number we gave a brief account of the peculiarities of
Jenichen's mode of preparing bis renowned potencies, as far as
we could understand that from the rambling account furnished
by his successor and heir, Dr. Rentsch. In the 42d Vol. of the
Allgemeine homöopathische Zeitung we have a more connected ac-
count from Dr. Rentsch, which we think it right to lay before
our readers, wherefrom they may themselves judge of the
rationality of the stall-meister's method and in general of the
claims of their originator to the confidence of the profession.
Caspar Julius Jenichen was born in 1787, and destined by his
father for the legal profession, but his inclination led him to de-
vote himself to the study of the veterinary art, and he soon
acquired a tolerable reputation as a horse-doctor, and got the
charge of the Duke of Gotha's manege, with the title of Stall-
meister or Ecuyer. He afterwards gave up this appointment,
and after becoming a convert to the homoeopathic method he
finally settled in Wismar, where he did not confine his practice.
to beasts but operated likewise on human beings. It was in
Wismar he invented the high potencies which have become so
notorious. It is said that the labor and fatigue caused by their
preparation made him fall ill of a very painful disease of the foot
and leg, to free himself from which, finding that his high poten-
cies did not suffice, he took an allopathic dose of Plumbum by
sending a bullet into his brain.
*
He soon became convinced (we are not told how) that the
decillionth dilution, as prescribed by Hahnemann, was not the
best potency in which to administer the medicine, and he forth-
with began to dilute still higher and higher in the ordinary
manner with but indifferent success, until accident one day re-
vealed to him the mode in which he could make the most
effectual preparation. He wished to dynamize the 29th dilution
of Plumbum aceticum still higher, when he found that the cork
of the bottle in which that preparation was had got loosened,
and the whole of its contents had evaporated. He resolved to
ascertain if in this dry bottle there still existed medicinal power,
and accordingly, adding the requisite quantity of alcohol, he
396
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
dynamized it up to the 200th. He soon had an opportunity of
testing its virtue, for a patient appeared suffering from fetid
sweat of the feet, whom he allowed to sniff once at some globules
moistened with this wonderful preparation, and behold! in a few
days he was quite cured! From this case he most logically in-
ferred that the best mode of preparing all the earths and metals
must be to allow the 29th dilution to evaporate to dryness, and
from this dry bottle to go on preparing the higher dilutions.
Dr. Rentsch cannot say for certain if he applied the same rule to
his preparations of the other medicines besides the earths and
metals. The vehicle employed for the dilution was, up to the
800th, alcohol of from 70° to 80°, beyond that, water from the
Lake of Schwerin. The proportions used were: for the dilutions
up to 200, 6 drops of the previous dilution to 294 of the vehicle;
from the 300th to the 800th, I drop to 300; for the higher dilu-
tions, 2 drops to 12,000. The lowest dilution of the Jenichen
scale was 200, the highest we cannot tell. In the preparation of
his potencies he used 8 bottles. These were 434 inches high
and 3/4 of an inch wide. When he diluted beyond 800, he used
much larger bottles. The succussion he performed in the stand-
ing or sitting position, with the upper part of his body naked.
He held the bottle in his fist in a slanting direction, from left to
right, and gave the strokes perpendicularly with all his force,
so that the fluid in the bottle made a noise like the jingling of
silver coins. At first the violent muscular action caused, after
three days' work, so much pain in the arm, that he was forced
to discontinue it and rest for a week or a fortnight. Afterwards,
when he got regularly into training and his muscles were in
condition, he ceased to feel any bad effects from his violent exer-
cise. By a minute calculation made by Dr. Rentsch, from the
quantity of alcohol stated by Jenichen to have been employed by
him to make the 200th potency, and from various other assertions
of Jenichen's, it appears that he reckoned his potencies quite
differently from Hahnemann, and that the following was the way
in which he made them. He had, as before observed, 8 bottles.
In the first of these he put the vehicle and medicine in the pro-
portions above indicated; gave to this 250 succussions without
stopping, and considered that he had potentized it 25 degrees,
ten succussions counting as a degree of potency. He then rested
a little and proceeded to the next bottle, into which he poured
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
397
6 drops of the preparation he had just made and 294 drops of
alcohol, gave to this 250 strokes, and considered he had increased
its potency by other 25 degrees, and so he went on through his
8 bottles, 8 X 25 = 200; so that if this be true, and we have no
reason to doubt its accuracy, Jenichen's 200th potency corre-
sponds to the 38th potency of Hahnemann, only made with the
proportions of 1 to 50 instead of 1 to 100, and the last 8 potencies
having received 2000 succussions in place of 16. The higher
potencies seem to have been made in a precisely similar manner,
except as regards the proportions of the vehicle indicated above
and the amount of succussions given to each so called potency,
which were increased as he ascended the scale. Thus it is al-
together a misnomer to speak of Jenichen's preparations as the
200th, 400th, &c., dilutions, at most they are only the 38th,
46th, &c.
It even appears, from what Rentsch says, that he latterly con-
tented himself with increasing the potency in one bottle only, by
merely succussing and not diluting further; so that his later
preparations all represent only the 30th or 31st dilution of the
Hahnemannic scale, to which a more or less enormous amount
of succussions had been given. Nay, more, Dr. Rentsch sur-
mises that he latterly abandoned the 29th dilution as his starting
point, and commenced with the 6th or the 3d dilution, or per-
haps even still lower, designating the potency not by the amount
of dilution he gave it, but by the number of succussions he com-
municated to it. In this case the highest Jenichen preparations
may represent the very lowest dilution, to which his enormous
number of succussions has been given. If this be the case, and
we have no reason to mistrust the accuracy of Dr. Rentsch's in-
ferences, it is absurd to talk of the Jenichen preparations as the
200th, 800th, &c. dilution; potency is the name he gave them,
and he always denied that they were dilutions. These preparations
are somewhat similar to those introduced by Wahle, of Rome,
who prepared high potencies simply by shaking the 6th dilution
some thousands of times. That we have as yet any proof that
either his or Jenichen's potencies act better than the ordinary
preparations we must utterly deny. If the account we have given
of Jenichen's preparations from Dr. Rentsch's rambling surmises
be correct, and more especially if it should be true that most of
the preparations were made from low potencies without further
398
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
dilution, the most obvious inference we can draw from the whole
Jenichen controversy is this, that those who delighted to call
themselves pure Hahnemannists, among whom the high-potency
heresy chiefly spread, had found that sticking to decillionths
was not the very best mode of curing their patients, and that
they eagerly caught at Jenichen's preparations which they con-
ceived to owe their efficacy to their greater dilution and dynami-
zation, whereas the better results they obtain were referrable to
their employment of stronger doses of the medicine under a de-
ceptive name.
We have said that Dr. Rentsch's statements as to the Jenichen
potencies are only inferences or surmises from the documents.
and letters which he inherited. Dr. Hering, of Philadel-
phia, however, stated so long ago as the year 1847 (Vide British
Journal of Homœopathy, vol. v.), that he knew the secret of their
preparation. We think it might have saved a world of con-
troversy and acrimony among the disciples of Hahnemann, and
have saved Homoeopathy the scandal of dealing in nostrums and
arcana, had he long ago published the secret which he alone has
hitherto professed to know for certain. It is evident that as
long as the mode of their preparation remained secret they were
treated with disdain by the great majority of homoeopathic prac-
titioners, and we have no expectation that the revelation that
we have given, or that Dr. Hering could give, relative to them,
will have the effect of making them more esteemed; but it is im-
portant that all suspicion of secret processes or secret remedies
should be banished as speedily as may be from our system, which
professes to be in the vanguard of medical science.
In the British Journal of January, 1880, appeared a whimsical
editorial, called “A Cat in a Bag." It was all about Jenichen,
and Rentsch's disclosures, and Hering's refusal to tell. We
quote: Such has been mutatis mutandis, very nearly the history
of that homoeopathic cat-in-the-bag-Jenichen's mode of manu-
facturing the so called high potencies. Drs. Gross and Stapf
were the first patrons of these novelties—not that Jenichen was
the first introducer of high potencies, so-called, into homœopathic
practice, for Von Korsakoff preceded him with his high potencies
by infection, as we showed in vol. v. The novelty of Jenichen's
high potencies was their mode of preparation, which he kept a
dead secret, and secrecy also was a novelty in homoeopathic
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
399
pharmacy; if these gentlemen knew Jenichen's method, at all
events they did noc reveal it. Dr. C. Hering certainly knew it,
and after the death of Gross and Stapf-if not before—was the
only one who possessed the secret.
")
Hering was frequently appealed to to reveal the secret, but his
answer was: "If any one wishes to know how Jenichen's
preparations are made, let him apply to Jenichen; I know it, and
that is sufficient for my purpose.
Solicitations were evidently
fruitless to get the cat out of the bag. A most interesting letter
from Dr. Hering dated Philadelphia, June 1st, 1847, may be
found in the British Journal of Homeopathy for October, 1847, in
which he tells the story of his travels in Europe and a great deal
about the Jenichen controversy.
Dr. Rentsch, of Wismar, a very scientific man, whose physio-
logical researches in the domain of microscopic organisms re-
semble in some ways those of our own Drysdale, was constituted
the heir of Jenichen. At the meeting of the Congress at Leip-
zig in 1851 he read a paper giving, from the writings of Jenichen
and, where these were defective, from his own conjectures, the
mode of preparation of Jenichen's potencies. We gave an
account in our ninth volume of our impression of what Rentsch
said at the Congress; not an abstract of his paper, which we
had not seen, and which, in fact, we did not see until after our
own report had been published. Well, Rentsch's guess at the
contents of the bag did not succeed in inducing Hering to let his
cat out; so our venerable friend still continued to pass as the sole
and envied possessor of the mighty secret.
But the bag, which was kept tightly closed against the solici-
tations and the guesses of friendly colleagues, was at last opened
to Dr. Hughes's contemptuous remark in our number of last
January, that these high potencies are "utter impossibilities,"
equivalent to an assertion that there is nothing in the bag; that,
in short, the whole affair is a sort of homeopathic Mrs. Harris,
of whom the skeptical Mrs. Prigg said "she didn't believe there
wasn't no sich person." Dr. Hering, more fortunate than Sarah
Gamp, can triumphantly produce his Mrs. Harris in the flesh-
he has a real cat to let out of his bag.
He was probably rendered more willing to do this by the crop
of rival claimants to high-potency fame that had sprung up of
late. As long as there was only one, poor Petters, of Dessau,
400
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
who tried to make high potencies according to Hahnemann's
method, Hering had no difficulty in snuffing him out with the
remark that his potencies had been tried and found useless, and
although Rummel took up the defence of Petters, and even sub-
jected his preparations to the ordeal of a solar microscope, it was
of no avail. Jenichen and Jenichen alone would go down, and
henceforth, for some time, high potencies and Jenichen's
preparations were convertible terms. But when a crowd of high
potentizers appeared, each with his cat in his bag, which he
made no pretence of concealing, but, on the contrary, which he
displayed to all the world, appealing to all to say whether it
was not the very perfection of cats, and especially a thousand
times better than that old affair of Jenichen's, the possessor of
the last-mentioned treasure felt that unless he displayed his
very superior animal there was some danger that its place would
be occupied by one or more of the new claimants for admiration.
There was Dunham with his 200ths, made by fastening his
bottles to a mill-wheel; Fincke with his thousandths, obtained
by the facile process of putting his dilution bottle under a water
butt, and letting the contents flow through it at their leisure;
there was Lehrmann with his high potencies made one way,
Boericke with his high potencies made another way; Swan
with his millionths, and Skinner with his ten millionths.
The ingenuity of some of these potentizers is displayed in
the complicated machines, automatic and other, for taking
the labor of potentizing off their hands. Evidently one or
other of these new high-potencies, some of which go up to
millions, will soon shoulder the Jenichen potencies out of the
swim altogether, unless it can be shown that his method is
vastly superior to any of their modern rivals with their new-
fangled machinery. So its custodian resolves at last and at
length to let the Jenichen cat out of the bag, and he chooses
"The Organon" for that purpose. Rather hard, this, on Dr.
Skinner, who has his own special potencies, and his own in-
genious machinery for potentizing.
We will now compare the accounts given by Hering and
Rentsch of Jenichen and his mode of preparing the high-potencies
connected with his name, in order to enable our readers to judge
of the difference between them, and to appraise for themselves
the value of Dr. Hering's cat in the bag.
靠
​OF HOMEOPATHY.
401
RENTSCH.
Casp. Jul. Jenichen, born
at Gotha in 1787, was intended
by his father for the profession
of law. In 1814 he went to
fight as a mounted volunteer
rifleman. Returning from the
wars he bought a property near
Gotha, where he devoted him-
self to training horses and
veterinary medicine. When,
in 1821, Duke Ernst erected a
national manége, Jenichen was
appointed Master of the Horse
and placed at the head of the
institution. Owing to his
skill in veterinary medicine he
was appointed examiner of can-
didates. After the death of
the Duke, the manége being
done away with, Jenichen
went back to his property and
horse training. He had be-
come acquainted with Homeo-
pathy in Gotha, and practiced
it on his horses. At the re-
quest of Baron von Biel, of
Weitendorf, near Wismar, he
undertook the management of
his stables. After some years
he retired from his post and
settled in Wismar. Here he
invented the high potencies,
and whilst preparing them he
got a disease of the feet and
legs, which caused him so much
pain that he committed suicide
in February, 1849.
Jenichen was a man of Her-
culean strength. He once, for
HERING.
Jenichen belonged to a noble
family of North Germany (what
became of the "von"?); he
distinguished himself as a cav-
alry officer at Waterloo. After
this he was engaged to be mar-
ried, but on riding to his
bride's house he learned she
was dead, like
•
"The last lord of Ravenswood to
Ravenswood did ride,
To woo a dead maiden to be his
bride."
He returned home alone, and
being told that her life might
have been saved by Homœop-
athy, took to studying that
system of medicine. Having
acquired a knowledge of the
practice, he devoted all his
energies to curing horses. His
muscular strength was pro-
digious. One day he saw a car-
riage and pair dashing down
a hill at full speed. He caught
hold of a horse with each hand
and brought them to a stand-
still. (The size of the horses is
not stated; perhaps it was a
pony carriage.) The carriage
contained the Grand Duke of
Gotha and his lady. (When
was the Duchy of Gotha made
a Grand Duchy ?) The Grand
Duke invited Jenichen to his
house, and made him his Master
of the Horse. The British, with
their characteristic meanness,
translate this title (stallmeister)
402
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
a wager, dashed his fist through
a door panel, and he exerted
all his strength in the prepara-
tion of high potencies. The
reason why he made high
potencies was because he was
discontented with the potencies
produced on the method pur-
sued by Hahnemann (whether
with their effects on horses or
men we are not told). He did
not think better of Korsakoff's
method, and resolved to find
one for himself. He had the
luck to make a great discovery
no less than a new law of
nature (Naturgesetz); a real
revelation of nature (Natur-
offenbarung)-in this way:-
Finding a bottle of the 29th
dilution of Plumb. ac. dried up,
the cork loose and dry, the
idea occurred to him to poten-
tize from this bottle up to the
200th. A patient affected with
hereditary fetid perspiration of
the feet, smelt once at a few
globules saturated with this
potency, and in a few days was
permanently cured. After this
Jenichen began all his high
dilutions of earths and metals
from the evaporated 29th dilu-
tion. Rentsch does not know if
he did this with other medi-
cines besides the metals and the
earths. He thinks it probable
that Jenichen began to poten-
tize other medicines from the
5th or 3d attenuation.
into
into "hostler." (We don't
know who Dr. Hering refers
as far as we know the
British have always said he was
a trainer of horses, on the au-
thority of Rentsch and others;
we don't remember to have
heard him called "hostler.")
At the duke's table one day he
rolled up a silver plate as if it
had been a piece of pasteboard,
and afterwards tore the roll
into shreds as if it had been a
newspaper. (No wonder the
Grand Duke did not retain his
services very long. A new ter-
ror will be added to the busi-
ness of a host if the guests are
to roll up their silver plates like
pasteboard and afterwards tear
them to shreds like newspapers.
We have heard the story of
rolling up a silver plate with
the fingers told of Count Orloff,
a Russian ambassador, but the
tearing it afterwards to shreds
is new to us. Moral.-Don't
ask athletes to dinner if you
have any silver plate lying
about.)
Oz.
The high potencies, i. e., up
to 800, are made in bottles 4½
inches long and weighing 2
Each potency gets
twelve strokes. The highest
potencies-from 900 upwards-
are made in bottles weighing 18
oz., including the contents.
Each potency gets thirty
strokes. The vehicle used is
to;
OF HOMEOPATHY.
403
For the potencies from 200
to 800 he used alcohol, for
those from 800 upwards the
water of Lake Schwerin, which
is as clear as crystal.
The proportions of medicine
to vehicle were, up to 200, 6
to 294; for those from 300 to
800, I to 300; for the remainder
2 to 12,000.
For the high potencies he
used bottles 434 inches high,
3/4 inch wide, which weighed
½ an ounce (one Loth). He
used eight such bottles.
For the highest potencies he
employed larger and heavier
bottles, which, including their
contents, weighed 18 ounces
(36 Loth).
Jenichen sat or stood stripped
naked to the waist, holding
the bottle in his fist in an
oblique direction from left to
right, and shook it in a vertical
direction.
The fluid, at every stroke,
emitted a sound like the ring-
ing of silver coins. He paused
after every 25th potency, and
the muscles of his naked arm
vibrated. At first, after one
day of potentizing, he had to
rest about a week to recover,
but when by practice he got
into condition he would go on
potentizing without hurting
the muscles, though every
stroke shook his body as
though it was electrified. He
the water of Lake Schwerin,
which is as clear as crystal.
(Water clear as crystal" does
not give us information as to its
purity. Our Thames water as
supplied by the companies may
be described as (( clear as crys-
tal," but we know that it con-
tains a pretty considerable ad-
mixture of organic and inor-
ganic substances.)
His regular proportion of
medicine to vehicle for the high
potencies is 1 to 300, for the
highest potencies 2 to 12,000.
But he does not know the exact
proportion of composition in the
highest potencies.
Dr. Hering gives exactly the
same account as Rentsch of
Jenichen's discovery of the art
of making high potencies-
which, however, he does not,
like Rentsch, call a new-dis-
covered law of nature or a rev-
elation of nature-viz: the
dried-up bottle of Plumb. ac.
29. The cork was shrivelled
and loose in the bottle's neck,
and had, perhaps, been so for
years. He filled it three fourths
full of alcohol, shook it, and
then potentized a drop of this
in his usual way with 300
drops of alcohol up to 200.
With this he saturated some
globules and cured with them
a stinking foot-sweat of two
years' standing.
Ever since that time J. made
404
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
was latterly able to give 8400 all the high potencies of the
strokes in an hour.
He worked at his voluntary
task from 10 P. M. till 3 A. M.,
keeping himself awake by
drinking cold, black coffee.
He always took everything in
the shape of food and drink
cold, as he held warm food to
be unphysiological, and he was
a teetotaller.
earths and minerals, as also
some others, from evaporated
phials. (It would be important
to know how many of the other
medicines he potentized in this
way, and if he did not make
them all so, at all events it is
evident, from what Hering says,
that he did not confine his re-
markable method of potentiz-
ing from an empty bottle to
the earths and metals; so, for
all we know, he may have so
prepared all his high potencies.
Hahnemann taught that each
dilution should be made with a
hundredth part of the previous
potency; but Jenichen, whose
method was considered so in-
finitely superior
finitely superior to Hahne-
mann's by some of Hahne-
mann's immediate disciples,
and who enjoyed revelations of
nature denied to Hahnemann,
prepared his potencies from an
empty bottle. If Hahnemann
took for his motto similia sim-
ilibus curentur, it would not
have been amiss had Jenichen
adopted the motto ex nihilo
nihil fit.)
Our readers have now before them the two accounts of Jeni-
chen's mode of preparing his high potencies, Rentsch's guesses
and Hering's revelations, and they may judge for themselves
how far they differ. To ourselves the difference between them
is much about as important as that between the traditional
tweedledum and tweedledee. They both say that the process of
high potentizing commenced with a phial nominally of the 29th
dilution, from which all the medicine had been evaporated.
From 200 he gave 10 shakes
for each potency; from 300 to
800, 12 shakes; from 800 to
40,000, 30 shakes for each
dilution.
Rentsch thinks that for
every 10, 12, or 30 shakes, he
counted a degree of potency.
He thinks, also, that the pecu-
liar efficacy of Jenichen's
potencies was owing partly to
their being started from the
evaporated bottle of the 29th
dilution, which he terms a rev-
elation of a natural law, partly
to the violent friction of the fluid
against the sides of the bottle
effected by his giant strength,
partly by the magnetic power
communicated to the fluid by
his enthusiasm and will.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
405
This to Rentsch is a physical apocalypse (Naturoffenbarung).
Hering discreetly omits to say what he thinks of it. They agree
in the proportions of vehicle to medicine, I to 300 for the high,
2 to 12,000 for the highest potencies. They agree also in the
number of shakes given to each dilution. They both describe
the muscular strength of this person as prodigious. Rentsch
describes him dashing his fist through a door-panel, Hering as
stopping a carriage and a pair of horses madly galloping down
hill with a Grandduke and his lady (possibly his grandduchess),
and afterwards rolling up silver plates and tearing them in strips.
The only point on which there is a material difference between
these two authorities is where Rentsch suspects that Jenichen
reckoned each 10, 12 or 30 shakes as a degree of potency irre-
spective of dilution. There is apparently no foundation for this
suspicion in Jenichen's own communications, but yet there is
nothing in them to render it impossible that such was the case,
and Rentsch says the cirrumstance that he only employed eight
phials in all for a medicine, and had them scalded with hot water
for each subsequent medicine, rather strengthens Rentsch's sup-
position. Moreover, Jenichen says he rested after every 25th
potency, and that the 200th potency received 2,000 succussion
strokes. Now, 8 X 25 = 200 and 8 X 250 2,000, which looks
as though one bottle were used without pause for every 25 poten-
cies, and as though the dilution were only performed eight times,
and not 200 times, as it would have been according to the Hahne-
mannic process. Hering offers no evidence that this is not the
explanation of Jenichen's high potencies, unless that be consid-
ered as evidence which Jenichen writes to Hering, that he pro-
poses to make a special potency for Hering running from a
2,000th, and giving it 10,000 strokes, but only raising it eight
degrees thereby. Benninghausen's "conclusive comments"
have no bearing on the subject.
But after all, what does it matter? The only point of interest
in connection with the whole subject to us is this, that men of
standing in the homoeopathic world, Hahnemann's immediate
disciples and others, could encourage an ignorant and presump-
tuous man like this Jenichen in his attempt to upset the teach-
ings of the master with regard to the preparation of homoeopathic
medicines, and to substitute for the well-known and well tried
pharmaceutic processes hitherto practiced a method proceeding
<<
406
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
from his own fancy, without a single proof of its superiority,
which set at defiance all the maxims of reason and experience,
and would imply that the proper mode of making our pharma-
ceutic preparations is to commence diluting from an empty bottle.
The instances of Jenichen's practice, published after his death,
and which there is no reason to suppose Stapf and Gross knew
about, are mostly beneath contempt, either from their utter
triviality or sheer impossibility. Here is one of each: “ A
three-quarter-year old little boy suffered from diarrhoea with the
smell of rotten eggs, cough, and rattling of mucus in the chest.
Chamomill 4,000 removed the diarrhoea by the next day, but the
bronchial catarrh only after five days." Just what we might ex-
pect from the administration of nothing. "A girl of eleven had
suffered for four months from grey cataract of the left eye. One
dose of Silic. 6,000 cured her in eight days." So, on the testi-
mony of an ignorant horse trainer, we are expected to believe that
a girl of eleven had grey cataract of one eye, and further, that it
was cured by internal treatment in eight days. Credat Judæus!
Of what value can be the assertions of a man who is either so
ignorant or so untruthful as to make such a statement? Con-
nected with this melancholy incident in the history of Homopa-
thy we have a scientific man like Rentsch declaring that this
empty-bottle pharmacy is a revelation of nature-a physical
apocalypse-a newly discovered law of nature; and we have the
sad spectacle of men like Gross and Stapf encouraging, if not
enjoining, this vain man to keep his process a secret, thus intro-
ducing, for the first time, into Homœopathy the disreputable
secrecy of the charlatan. The saddest spectacle of all is that of
the honored veteran of the homoeopathic Materia Medica, Dr.
Hering, urging on Jenichen, from across the Atlantic, to go
higher and higher. Thus encouraged, stimulated by the ap-
plause of these well-known disciples of Hahnemann, see the
wretched author of these innovations laboring half naked every
night from 10 to 3 at his useless work, expending his prodigious
strength on succussing successive dilutions of nothing, each
stroke of his Herculean arm making the innocuous liquid in the
bottle ring like silver money, and causing the whole house to
shake. His giant strength and health gave way under his self-
imposed task; but still he toiled away in obedience to Hering's
wish, and for Hering's sake gave still more shakes to each dilu-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
407
tion. His health and his brain at length gave way under this
incessant toil, and he put an end voluntarily at once to life and
his sufferings.
This miserable episode reminds us of the fable of the frog
swelling and puffing itself out to imitate the ox. "Is that big
enough?" cries the ambitious reptile. "No! bigger, bigger!"'
cries its companions, until at last the poor creature bursts with
its efforts. So Jenichen says to Hering, "Is that high enough?"
"No! higher, higher, every year higher!" cries Hering; until at
length the wretched man succumbs to his willing efforts.
The manifest duty of those who first came in contact with
Jenichen and his potencies was to discourage any departure from
Hahnemann's approved method. If it be replied that they did
not know Jenichen's method of preparing his so called high-
potencies, then it was clearly their duty either to insist on a full
and complete publication of his process, or to decline to have.
anything to do with them.
Had they acted in the interests of science and Homoeopathy
they would have snubbed the poor lunatic from the first, thereby
saving us from a shameful episode of credulity and nostrum-
mongering, and perhaps preventing the melancholy self sacrifice
of a half-witted enthusiast, whose antecedents eminently disqual-
ified him for the office of revolutionizing and upsetting Hahne-
mann's pharmaceutic processes.
As for Dr. Hering's exclusive possession of the secret of Jeni-
chen's mode of preparing his high potencies, our readers are
now able to estimate the value of this for themselves, now that
Hering has himself let the cat out of the bag. We now see that
far from being a respectable cat it more nearly resembles a much
more insignificant animal. Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus
mus! The process of parturition has been long and difficult,
and the result is like the starting-point of Jenichen's high poten-
cies-nothing at all!
After this corroboration by the sole possessor of Jenichen's
secret of what Rentsch told us long ago, we regret that we
devoted so much space in our 5th vol. to a consideration of these
worthless preparations. The highly respectable names of Drs.
Gross and Stapf, who stood sponsors to the Jenichen innovation,
induced us to attach to it a greater importance than it deserved.
It is humiliating to observe that a respectable reputation, real
408
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
useful work, and an intimate personal acquaintance and friend-
ship with the great founder of Homœopathy failed to preserve
some of his immediate disciples from such arrant gobemoucherie.
Roth tells in the British Journal of Homœopathy (vol. 30, p. 74)
of Hering's account of his conversion to Homœopathy: In
my arrogance I believed in 1822 that there was something in
Hahnemann's doctrine, and wished, by way of experiment, to
free it from its errors, to purify it, to make it scientific. I
wished to make an experiment on my sister Ernestine, who was
a real incarnate Pulsatilla; when I called on her and found her
eyes inflamed, I was so intensely incredulous that I wished to
prepare myself the tincture, but as I did not find the plant where
I had seen it before I fetched the Tincture of Pulsatilla at Theo-
dore Rückert's, in Herrnhut, and prepared myself the dilutions.
To 100 I did not object; the second 100 I considered naturally
as nothing; the third 100 as nothing at all; there was nothing
but laughing going on. Having already prepared the six little
bottles, and wishing to make a trial, I continued the dilutions,
thinking, in case of failure, I can again descend the ladder,
otherwise I would have certainly stopped. While all the sisters
laughed I gave her (Ernestine) one drop of the 6th dilution,
that is 1,000,000,000,000th, and we went merrily to bed. Hav-
ing walked to and fro from Zittau to Herrnhut (it was spring),
I slept like a top, when I was awoke by a loud call of "Murderer,
up, march! Now save your sister if you can."
It was my
father who, with a light in his hand, stood before me in the
greatest rage; he said, "Try your devilish experiments on dogs
and cats, but not on women, and least of all in my own house,
on your sister, on your poor sick sister. This d poison must
be immediately removed from the house." Thus he continned,
while I silently obeyed, and, following him, covered myself with
my Russian sheepskin cloak. Ernestine was up, and ran to and
fro moaning and crying, "I must die," and, in fact, she was
out of her senses. The other sisters were very anxious, the
little ones crying. The oldest sister, Klara, was the only one
who remained quiet and tried to soothe all. I fetched the
Materia Medica, 1 ed., vol. ii p. 233, ordered hot water, and
Camomile flowers, prepared a cup of tea, an infusion, and gave
it to the patient in teaspoonful doses; if this should be useless,
coffee is to be prepared. Ernestine complained of being blind
OF HOMEOPATHY.
409
and was shivering. After taking the Camomile she went to bed,
got warm, and perspired. "Do you believe,
"Do you believe," asked sister
Klara, when I took one flower of Camomile to prepare the tea,
"that this is really the effect of the Pulsatilla." I answered,
"Give her this;" sat near the window, looked at the starry
heavens, when the thought struck me "Hahnemann may still
be right." There I sat till all were quiet and asleep.
He who remembers such things cannot object that others
should feel an emotion by the revelation of an infinity, after
having been accustomed to think differently during their whole
previous life. But when one case after the other confirms the
efficacy of small doses, as we are inclined to call this thing, then
we see who has learned to think-' He who has seen the effect of
100 to 1000, not only once or several times, but always in suitable
cases, and has to some extent learned to think, cannot but desire
a further progress in this direction. This is certain, that it can
never be "nothing." Notwithstanding this I heard lately again.
a sigh, that 30 act, also 200 and 300," but the further potencies
are still too ghostly. . . . They all fear and are afraid of ghosts.
All these people are unaccustomed to think scientifically, and this
is the only cause inducing them to make use of expressions
which are abominable to those who are accustomed to think
scientifically. We can say nothing else to such people but
Learn first to think correctly.
(4
Roth thus writes of the birth of Jenichen's baby, Arsenicum
8000. Jenichen's letter to Gross, dated Wismar, 2d January,
1846, published with comments by Bonninghausen (A. H. Z.,
vol. 61, p. 71), Jenichen was induced by the words of Gross-
where will the high potencies end and where is their limit-to
increase his Arsenicum 2,500 to 8,000. He wanted for this pur-
pose 165,000 powerful succussions, produced by the faithful
power of his arm. On the 1st of January, 1846, at 2:30 A. M.,
Arsenicum 8000 was born. He is most anxious to know whether
this baby will soon die or reach the age of centuries, which will
depend upon its being able to do something or nothing, or per-
haps very much, &c.
Bonninghausen calculates that Jenichen has worked nine
days to prepare 5500 new potencies, and consequently has used
thirty succussions for each, and that working twelve hours each
410
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
day he has made twenty-five strong movements with the arm
every minute.
Jenichen ascribes all the triumph to Hering, who encouraged
high potencies, and exclaimed, "Every year higher." In a letter
to Bonninghausen, Jenichen says: "Being conscious that I
work for the whole sick world (because I hope that in course of
time and by degrees my preparations will be propagated), and
that nobody can prepare the medicines in this manner, this it is
which preserves my courage and revivifies my bodily powers."
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, pp. 132, 558; vol. 6, p. 132; vol. 8. p.
554: vol.9, p 682; vol 10, p. 108; vol. 30, p. 72; vol. 38; p. 66.
Kleinert, p. 214.
The Organon, Jan. 1878; October, 1879; Jan.,
1880; April, 1880. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 224, 270, 455, 523.
hom. Zeit. 42, was 10 et Seq.)
Allg.
JOHN, FREDERICO EMILIO. Was a student of the
Leipsic University in . In 18- he went to Rio de Janeiro
to conclude his studies in the medical school of Rio. There he
chose as the subject of his thesis the system of medicine that
was at the time attracting so much attention and making so
much progress in Germany, Europe and Russia, and known as
Homœopathy. He wrote regarding the advantage to humanity
of the new system of practice, and sustained his thesis, and on
it obtained the degree of doctor of medicine. This was in 1837.
(Trans. World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 407.)
JOURDAIN. Is on the list of Quin, of 1834, at which time
he was practicing Homoeopathy at Colmar, France.
JOURDAN, A. J. L. Was an early homoeopathic physician
of Paris. His name appears on the Quin list of 1834. He was
the author of numerous books. In 1832 he translated the
"Chronic Diseases" of Hahnemann into French, the book being
published in Paris. In 1834 the "Materia Medica Pura," and
in 1832 he translated the "Organon" into French. In 1840 he
published in two large volumes a "Universal Pharmacology,"
and in 1834 a medical dictionary. It has been impossible to find
any data regarding the life or death of this talented writer of the
homœopathic school.
JUVIN. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy at Grenoble, France.
(World's Con., vol. 2, p, 152.)
K
OF HOMEOPATHY.
4II
KAMMERER.
The name appears both in the Zeitung list
of 1832 and that of Quin of 1834. He was practicing Home-
opathy at Rothenburg, in Hesse-Darmstadt. Rapou says: At
Ulm I mention that exact homoeopathist, Dr. Kammerer, who
published in 1830 a memoir in response to a proposition which
Hufeland had made to combine the two rival schools in one
system. Kammerer contributed to the preservation of Homo-
opathy.
He was the author of several works. In 1834 Hahnemann
wrote a preface to a book by Kammerer. Kammerer's answer
to Hufeland was published in the Hygea, vol. 5, pt. 3 and 4, and
also in book form by Groos in 1837. Kammerer thought the
law of Isopathy as correct as Homœopathy, and relates a case
where the use of Cuprum 30 was efficacious in a case where
copper had been taken with the food.
The Zeitung states: Dr. Kammerer, Sr., in Gmund, one of the
veterans, and for many years connected with the Centralverein,
died in January of this year (1868). Gmund is situated in
Swabia. (Rapou, vol 2, pp. 611, 663. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. lxxii,
p. 168. Dudgeon's Lectures. Ameke., p. 299.)
(There are two Kammerer's mentioned in the Zeitung and
Quin lists, the one as at Schwabiseb Gmund and the other at
Rathenburg. The compiler has been unable to separate their
identity.)
KIESSELBACH, ERNST CARL. Ernst Carl Kiessel-
bach was born December 12th, 1808, in Bremen, where his
father, Wikolaus Kiesselbach, Doctor of Theology, was preacher
in the Church of St. Stephen. Ernst was the youngest of seven
children, and, as such already, he was the pet of the whole
family, and especially of his mother, who in her 83d year, after
other heavy losses, had also to see him die before her.
Kiesselbach was a boy who enjoyed life, and who spent a
happy childhood and youth. He received his first instruction from
his father, but although his head and his memory were excellent
the beginning was nevertheless difficult for him. But scarcely
had he commenced learning Latin, when in 1816 his father sud-
denly died of apoplexy. After brief private instruction, he came
into the public preparatory school under the direction of Prof.
Fr. Strack, where he soon distinguished himself as a diligent
412
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
and ambitious pupil. Also in the classic school he advanced
from one class to the other as rapidly as possible, and finally
left the school in autumn 1827, ready for the university. As a
boy of 6 years, Kiesselbach had already visited Heidelberg with
his parents. His elder brother was studying there, and it was
the home of his mother, whose nearest relatives were living
there. It was the favorite spot of the family, and so there could
be no doubt that the University of Heidelberg would be selected
for him. It was the same with his choice of studies. His
father was a preacher, who was as much beloved as esteemed
and whose early decease was much lamented. The wish was
frequently expressed that the son might in time fill the pulpit
in the rationalistic spirit of the father. Kiesselbach heard this
wish, as well as this supposition expressed so frequently, that he
seemed to think it a matter of course that he should execute
this idea, although the clerical estate did not seem to quite suit
his lively character.
But Kiesselbach studied theology for only one term, when he
saw that he was not suited for this study. His teachers were
Paulus, Daub and Creuzer. Then he studied philology and
especially the oriental languages, and found good and efficient
teachers in the Professors Bear, Umbreit and Hitzig. About
this time he elaborated a theological prize-essay (from the Old
Testament) which received the prize, and which he also used as
a dissertation in his examination as Doctor of Philosophy. The
theme was: Dogma de rebus post mortem futuris e veteris testa-
mentis scriptis tam canonicis quam apocryphis ratione exegetica-
critica erutum atque illustratum ab Ernesto Carolo Kiesselbach,
philosophia doctore, Heidelberga, 1832-4. "(Dogma concerning
things to come after death from the Scriptures of the Old Testa-
ment, as well from the canonical as the apocryphal books, in-
vestigated and illustrated in an exegetic-critical manner by
Ernst Carl Kiesselbach, doctor of philosophy.")
Even during the last year of his philological studies, Kiessel-
bach often thought that this kind of learning could not lastingly
satisfy his mind, which loved to move in life free and untram-
meled. He also during his vacations usually visited his uncle,
Dr. Kiesselbach, in Hanau, and saw and heard much there of
his extended activity and his great successes in his homoeopathic
practice; thus the thought of himself becoming a physician
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
413
gradually developed in him, and especially also of becoming
acquainted with Homoeopathy. Kiesselbach completed the
philological studies he had begun, and made his examination as
doctor (in which he carried off the highest degree), and he thus
proved that he had diligently used his time; but immediately
after his examination he announced to his teachers that he
would continue his studies and take up medicine.
Also now Kiesselbach would have liked to have remained in
Heidelberg, as he highly esteemed the medical faculty there,
and he had already entered his name for the study of anatomy,
when Dr. Rosshirt, who at that time was prorector, insisted that
he would have to be enrolled anew. Kiesselbach had no in-
clination to do this, and used his utmost endeavors to obtain per-
mission to attend the lectures without this formality. But in
vain, with every rigor he was directed by the apparitors at the
order of the prorector to leave the lecture room of anatomy.
So in the autumn of 1832 he left Heidelberg to go to Munich.
Here he studied for three years with great pleasure his newly
chosen department of medicine, then he visited Wuerzburg for
a year, partly to practice in the Julius Hospital under the
direction of Fuchs, and he also had private lessons from Prof.
d'Outrepont which he attended with much interest.
There he also received his doctor's diploma and wrote for the
purpose his medical dissertation, entitled: "Dissertatio inaugu-
ralis sisteus historiam formationis ac evolutionis nervi sympathici
una cum descriptione ejusden nervi decursus in animalibus quibus-
dam vertebratis. Auctore Ernesto Carolo Kiesselbach medicinæ et
philosophiæ doctore. Monachii 1835, 4.”
So Kiesselbach returned in the year 1836 to his native city of
Bremen, after having spent 9 years at different universities. As
it was already known that he had turned to Homœopathy, and
the examiners were allopathic physicians, the examination to
which he was subjected was not a light one, but he came out
also here with honors. He immediately announced to his fellow-
citizens that he was a homoeopath, and he strictly followed this
method from his first patient to his last. Kiesselbach, as a
determined homœopath, had many, yea, probably all the physi-
cians of Bremen as his opponents (until first Dr. Hirschfeld and
later on Dr. Krummacher joined him), and though his practice
414
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
at first increased very slowly he remained unshaken, using his
free time for study and firmly pursuing his.chosen path.
Soon he became engaged to a young lady of Bremen, a mem-
ber of a large and respected mercantile family; but he soon after
had the great misfortune of losing his brother; he was treated
allopathically, according to the views of his wife, who was and
remained a resolute opponent of Homoeopathy, so that Kiessel-
bach could not prevent his brother's being bled and dosed with
morphine, causing him dreadful sufferings. Kiesselbach found
the same opposition in the family of his wife, and had therefore
much to struggle against.
-
But he found a rich compensation in the ever increasing ex-
tension of his fame and of his practice. He had to buy horses
and a carriage to enable him to make all his calls. In his office-
hours his hall was filled with people who sought his counsel.
For some time Kiesselbach went to Oldenburg every two weeks,
and frequently more than fifty people were waiting for him in
the hotel where he used to stay. Later on he had to give up
these journeys on account of his bealth; so he, also, very seldom
then undertook obstetrical cases. Much as he had accomplished
in this branch of work his delicate health did not permit him to
continue in it. Besides his extended practice in the city he had
also an extended practice in the country. The country people
came streaming in from all parts of East Friesland, Oldenburg
and Hanover, and he had frequently to send off in the morning
ten letters with medicines to patients in the country, as his treat-
ment was in request from Emden all the way up the Rhine.
In the last years his health became more and more delicate.
In the year 1852 he was yet present at the meeting of the Central
Society in Frankfort, and from there he visited his beloved
Heidelberg. There he also died, a malignant liver disease hav-
ing developed, against which his vigorous constitution as well
as the art of physicians was in vain. Thus his active life, zeal-
ously and consistently devoted to Homœopathy, came to an end
on the 18th of November, 1856.
Dr. Griesselich, in his "Skizzen aus der Mappe eines resienden
Homöopathen," says: Dr. Kiesselbach, of Hanau, wished an
account of the Homopathic treatment of croup inserted in a
Kassel paper; the censor of the press vetoed it, and the Kassel
paper kept silent on the subject of croup and Homoeopathy.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
415
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 53, p. 88.
Zeit. f. hom. Klinik, vol. 6, p. 87.
Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 291, 604.
Ameke, p. 251.)
KINGDON, WILLIAM, (F. R. C. S.) This gentleman, who
for many years had a large general practice, and was greatly
liked by his patients and loved by his relatives and friends, de-
parted this life on the 7th of January, 1863, in the seventy-fifth
year of his age. We record his departure because for many
years he was parcel-homoeopath and parcel-allopath. He was
honest, however, for he told his patients, "I think this is a case
for homoeopathic treatment, or this is one for allopathic drug-
ging." Of necessity he suffered loss from halting between two
opinions on so important a subject.
During the last years of his life we believe he repudiated
Homœopathy; we can afford to make this statement. He was a
worthy man, and so peace to his manes.
Dr. Sampson, in "Truths and Their Relation to Homœopathy,"
p. 52, gives a paper read before the London Medical Society in
1836, in which he gives reasons for belief in Homœopathy; this
was published in the Lancet for October 15, 1836. (Mo. Hom.
Rev., vol. 7, p. 123. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik, vol. 12, p. 26.)
KINZEL. Rapou says: About 1827 Prince Esterhazy went
to Italy, accompanied by a homoeopathic physician, Dr. Kinzel.
On reaching Rome Kinzel remained for some time in that city,
awaiting the return of the Prince, and employed his time prac-
ticing and popularizing Homœopathy. He made some happy
cures, showing the advantage of the new method, and when he
departed with the Prince he had left the ground in a fit condi-
tion for future effort. Some years later De Horatiis, Mauro,
Romani, those distinguished homeopathists from Naples, stopped
in Rome in their trips to the North of Italy. The many patients.
of Kinzel, hearing of their arrival, desired to be treated by the
new method, and the physicians were thus detained there many
days.
Dr. Huber says that in 1834 the adherents of Homœopathy in
Trieste united for the purpose of inducing a homoeopathic phy-
sician to settle there. They persuaded Dr. Kinzel to come to
them from Naples, and he remained until 1845. (Rapou, vol. I,
1,
p. 120.
World's Conven., vol. 2, pp. 204, 1068.)
KIRSCHLEGER. In Quin's list of the homoeopathic prac-
416
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
titioners of 1834 the name appears, at which time he is located
in Münster.
KIRSTEN. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 he was
then a surgeon in Leipzig. Quin also locates him there in 1834.
There was another Dr. Kirsten, who died in 1863, who must not
be mistaken for this pioneer.
KLEINER. Was an early Russian homœopath. The name
apears on the Zeitung list of 1832, at which time he was at
Saratoff. Quin, in 1834, also notes this name.
KOLMAR, DANIEL. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. His name is in the Zietung list and also that of
Quin. In 1829-34 he was practicing Homoeopathy at Comorre,
Hungary.
KORNER. The Zeitung list of 1832 places Korner in Wurtem-
burg, but does not mention the town. Quin is no more explicit.
KRAFT. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829. He was then at Rossleben, Saxony. The Zeitung list of
1832 and the Quin list of 1834 locates him at the same place.
KRAMPLA. Was practicing Homoeopathy in Olmutz in
1832; the name is on the Zeitung list of that date. It is also on
that of Quin of 1834.
KRETZSCHMAR,
TRANGOTT. On the Ioth
of
April (1838), on the birthday of Hahnemann, Dr. Trangott
Kretzschmar, in Belzig, departed this life after long sufferings,
He was born April 15th, 1786, at Dobrilugh (Dobwilüzt): but
he was fatherless, even before he saw the light of the world, for
his father, Superintendent Kretzschmar, died four weeks before
his birth. From his tenth year he lived in the house of his
grandfather, the celebrated Professor, Dr. Boehmer, at Witten-
berg; from the year 1806 to 1809 he there studied medicine, and
secured his doctor's diploma in the year 1809. Then he practiced
for sometime in the towns of Oschatz and Herzberg; but in the
year 1814 he went as military surgeon with the landwehr, and
in the latter part of the same year he settled in Belzig.
Concerning his medical views we have full information in the
Archiv fuer die hom. Heilk., VIII, 1, pp. 110-116.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
417
For many years he had been complaining of arthritic troubles.
which were aggravated from time to time, and caused him in
the passed summer to yield to the urgent representations of his
family and to try a mineral bath. But he returned thence in a
dropsical condition and never after recovered his bodily health.
Especially during the last fourteen days of his life, he endured
great sufferings, as he was then tormented day and night by an
erysipelatous inflammation, which destroyed his sleep, until on
the evening of April 10th, he found the much desired rest and
breathed out his spirit about 11 o'clock.
The readers of this journal will well remember what he was
as a homoeopath, and as was shown by his medical articles and
pamphlets he belonged to the Eclectics. But only his closer
friends know what he was as a physician in general and as a
man, and the writer of this was permitted to call him friend. A
firm trust in God, such as is not often found in these modern
times, and a most rare zeal in his profession, ever more animated
him, and the latter manifestly contributed to his early decease.
For when he was called on for help, nothing could prevent him
from obeying the call, day or night, sunshine or rain, and so it
frequently happened, especially as he was at the same time ob-
stetrician, that he drove out in the storm and rain in the dark
night on an open farmer's wagon, packed up in bedding, be-
because he happened to have one of his attacks of gout. Even
after he had become dropsical, he did not cease visiting his
patients. The writer well remembers a characteristic answer by
our departed friend when another and better practice was offered
him, which he declined: "What would come of my poor
peasants, if I should find the heart to leave them in their
misery?" Now he has, nevertheless, been compelled to leave
them, and has caused many laments by his departure. But he
needed rest, and this, to be sure, he could not find here. 'Sit
ei terra levis.”
((
Dr. Franz Hartmann, writing a retrospect of the early years of
Allgem. hom. Zeitung, mentioned Kretzschmar in connection with
the controversaries in Vol. 1 of that journal. He writes: There
was only one Hahnemann; he could not, and dared not have
acted otherwise if he wished his doctrine to succeed;* and he
* He refers evidently to Hahnemann's extreme severity to all who did
not follow his tenets to the letter.
418
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
could so act with a good conscience, for he was master of his art,
and grew more perfect day by day, and as far as he was con-
cerned he had surmounted all external obstacles. None of his
followers could by any means boast of such good fortune, hence
came all kinds of altercations and animosities among friends,
which were carried to a great excess; and the most extravagant
of all was the work of Hahnemann himself, and gave occasion to
the following question from Dr. Kretzschmar, of Belzig, a man
distinguished by his true scientific cultivation, and who has long
since departed. "What is the meaning of allopathizing in
Homœopathy, and can it exist?" (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 1, p.
22.) A more unfortunate question than this could hardly have
been asked, for it threw a firebrand among the orthodox; for
years the controversy raged, and became so embittered that
Hahnemann sent for publication in this journal (Vol. 2, No. 1)
an article adorned, after his usual fashion, with his favorite
epithets "mongrel sect," "bastard homoeopathists" and simi-
lar phrases-under the title: "To My True Disciples," and ex-
pressly required it to be printed without any change, so that no
offensive word could be erased by us, which, without affecting
the clearness of what he had so often said, would have removed
the injurious asperity of the whole.
Dr. Kretzschmar lived in a small town, far from any friendly
homœopathists; he devoted himself with zeal to the new doc-
trine, but it was impossible for him so soon to have acquired
such proficiency in it as to be able to employ at once the most
suitable homoeopathic remedies for all imaginable diseases,
especially at that time, when the inflammatory and congestive
diseases excited doubts and scruples in many whether they were
really to be overcome in all cases by homœopathic treatment.
These diseases Kretzschmar brought expressly forward in an
article, because probably up to that time he had but small
opportunity of observation or experience in them, and he said
that until greater certainty had been obtained it might some-
times be necessary to use allopathic palliatives. By his question
he undertook, unbidden, the defense of certain parties who had
been unjustly abused by Hahnemann in a public newspaper,
and thereby brought upon himself, not only the anger of the
Master, but many of the orthodox thought themselves called
upon to protest with energy against the views of Kretzschmar.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
419
Rummel, Muller and Trinks took Kretzschmar's part; the con-
troversy was long continued.
Traugott Kretzschmar was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829; he was then located at Belzig, Saxony. He is
located at the same place both on the Zeitung list of 1832, and
that of Quin of 1834.
Rapou says that in 1832 Kretzschmar ad Gross had already
tried the Korsakovian remedies with success. (Allg. hom. Zeit.,
vol. 13, p. 119. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 12, p. 185. Kleinert, pp.
192, 254. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 449, 589, 619, 621.)
KNORRE. Was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy at
Pernau, in Livonia. He was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. His name is on the Zeitung list of 1832, and
on that of 1834 of Quin.
KORSAKOFF, ISEMAN VON. Korsakoff was a noble
landed proprietor living in the neighborhood of Moscow, who
became interested in Homœopathy before 1829. It is likely that
he was the first Russian convert. In June, 1831, he sent to the
Archiv of Stapf a paper entitled: Experiences on the Propaga-
tion of the Medicinal Power of Homoeopathic Remedies, To-
gether with some Ideas on the Mode in which this Propagation
takes Place. This was in regard to a new method of medicating
pellets; he advocated placing one dry medicated pellet with a
great number of unmedicated pellets in a vial, and said that the
one medicated pellet would medicate all the others. Hahne-
mann follows with a paper on the subject. Hahnemann was a
friend and wrote to Korsakoff, and in a measure approved of his
ideas.
Of course there was a branch of the Homœopathic School who
did not put faith in the ideas Korsakoff originated. Dr. Roth, in
an article on Hahnemann's "Merits, Errors and Critics," pub-
lished in 1872 in the British Journal, says: This unhappy and
mystic idea of a dematerialization of the medicines, and of the
transmutation of a material medical substance into an immaterial
medicinal spirit, which has proved the greatest impediment to
the rational development of Homœopathy, unhappily suggested
to a layman, a Russian, Count Korsakoff, the notion of infecting
1000 unmedicated sugar globules with one globule previously
moistened with the 300th part of one drop of the 100th dilution
420
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of a medicine; this was the mischievous commencement of the
disgraceful high potencies, although, according to Dr. V. Meyer
(A. H. Z., vol. 58, p. 57), Hahnemann was satisfied with the
30th dilution, and did not approve of the higher dilutions-"once
this (diluting) must have an end, and cannot continue into the
infinite."
Dr. Bojanus says that Admiral Mordwinoff, not only an able
officer, but a man of high literary and scientific attainments,
writes thus to Korsakoff, another disciple of Hahnemann:
While the cholera is slaying its victims here (St. Petersburg),
the new and old schools are quarrelling: the physicians, superior
by position and number, put everything at stake, in order to de-
stroy the results of the former" (new school). "Herrmann writes
to me that he had to give up the treatment of cholera patients in
the hospital, for all those who were sent to him were dying, and
had already gone through the whole course of allopathic treatment.
All methods are admissible here, only Homoeopathy is persist-
ently persecuted." * * * * Korsakoff was probably the
earliest convert (in Russia), for he wrote to Hahnemann in 1829,
in regard to a new method of mediciating homoeopathic pellets,
which suggests some previous study of and acquaintance with
the subject. Although no physician, Korsakoff has perhaps
done more than any one else to prepare a safe foundation for
Homœopathy in Russia. He went
went much farther than an
amateur; he studied, tried, examined, and succeeded in making
discoveries of which no one before him had thought, not even
the Master himself, then living. That Hahnemann esteemed
him highly is proven by a letter found amongst Korsakoff's
papers, in which the venerable Master says: "I admire the zeal
with which you devote yourself to the beneficial healing art, not
only in order to have help for your own family and neighbors,
but also to penetrate the secrets of nature, as proved by your
valuable notes. I like one of your last suggestions, handed to
my nephew, to decide on the suitable remedy by the test of
smelling it. I have myself seen experiments confirmed. With
my utmost power I try above all things to find out what will be
of most use to my fellow men. I take this for the best road, in
which the happiness of us mortals during this short life is to be
found, and I am convinced that you also are of this opinion.
(C
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
421
Continue an activity which satisfies a feeling heart and do not
relax. This is my desire, to enjoy your favor.
"Your most devoted,
"S. HAHNEMANN.
}
From other papers we learn that Korsakoff had occupied him-
self with medicine before his conversion to Homoeopathy. He
left five books, containing 302 copies of allopathic prescriptions,
and the particulars of cases treated up to June, 1828. From
February, 1829, another journal of homoeopathic treatment of
family and dependents, continued till 1834, records 11,725 cases.
From that time he seems to have made no record of cases, though
he continued to administer as before to the sick on his estate,
giving their claims at all times precedence of other affairs. He
was an active and efficient propagandist, and his literary produc-
tions bear the stamp of an eminently original and thoughtful
mind. In the cholera years 1830 and 1847, Korsakoff was
elected by the nobility, district inspector. From this appoint-
ment we derive notes on the character of the cholera in Oren-
burg; of its treatment in Kasau by Arnhold, and in Pensa by
Peterson; its course in different European countries, also the
results of homoeopathic treatment of cholera in the old Catharine
Hospital, under the management of Dr. Goldberg, showing that
out of 1,274 cases in 1841-4 the mortality was but 6 per cent.
To facilitate the selection of a remedy by some general classifica-
tion Korsakoff studied and recorded the mode of action of ani-
mal, vegetable and mineral substances, alkalies and acids, on dif
ferent parts of the body. This work, though it bears the stamp
of laymanship, gives some valuable hints. When Korsakoff died,
in 1853, he had labored faithfully and successfully for twenty-six
years for the advancement of Homoeopathy. As originator of
the high potencies, he did a great service to the cause of science,
and it cannot be denied that he proved the efficacy of certain
substances in a degree of attenuation far beyond all conceivable.
limits. Future times, perhaps, will know better how to appre-
ciate such discoveries, which hitherto, it must be owned, have
promoted discord and contention to a far greater extent than they
have produced conviction. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p. 129;
vol. 30, p. 72; vol. 38, p. 310. World's Conv., vol. 2, pp. 253, 255.
Kleinert, pp. 150, 210. Rapou., vol. 2, p. 556.)
422
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
LABURTHE. Was an early pioneer of Homoeopathy in
Paris.
LAFFAN, JOSEPH DE DOURCY. The name appears in
the Quin list of 1834, but no place of residence is given. He is
styled-Baronettus.
LAFITTE. Was an early pioneer of Homoeopathy in Paris.
LANDESER. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee
of 1829, at which time he was practicing Homœopathy at Pernau
in Livonia. His name appears both in the Zeitung list of 1832
and that of Quin in 1834. He died at Pernau, in Russia, in 1875.
(A. H. Z, vol. 93. p. 96.)
•
LANG, CHARLES. Was an early practitioner of Homœ-
opathy in London. His name appears in the list of contributors
to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was
practicing Homoeopathy in London. His name is also on the
Zeitung list of 1832, but Quin in 1834 does not mention him.
LA RAJA, VINCENZO. Dadea says that Dr. La Raja was
in 1829 De Horatiis' assistant in the Clinique of the Trinity
Hospital, and that he published in that year a homoeopathic
pharmacopoeia with a clinical repertory. The name appears in
Quin's list of 1834, at which time he was practicing at Cotrone.
The clinic was closed in 1829, and Dr. La Raja went to Cotrone
to practice Homoeopathy, where he was physician to the military
hospital; for years he practiced there and in other provinces of
Campobasso with success, giving general satisfaction. In 1858
he visited Gravina, his native place, where he died. In 1837 he
published a guide for the cure of the Asiatic cholera, and in
1846 he reproduced the Apologia of Bigel. (World's Conv., vol. 2,
p. 1086.)
LARIO, JOAQUIN. Was an allopathic physician who was
converted by Dr. Coll about 1834.
LAURENCET. According to the list of Quin of 1834, Dr.
Laurencet was practicing Homoeopathy at that time in Lyons,
France.
LAVILLE. According to Quin, was practicing Homœopathy
in Lyons in 1834.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
423
LEAF, WILLIAM. Reference is made to Mr. Leaf as
follows: The eminent London merchant and well
known philanthropist died on the 4th of July, 1874' at his
residence, Streatham Hill, in the 85th year of his age. We be-
lieve that there is no one unconnected with the profession of
medicine to whom Homoeopathy is more indebted for the firm
root it took in this country forty years ago than to Mr. Leaf. A
patient and intimate friend of Hahnemann, Mr. Leaf spared
neither influence, money nor time in his endeavors to secure the
practice of Homœopathy in England. We purpose in our next
number furnishing our readers with as full a record of the efforts
he made in this direction as the resources at our disposal will
enable us to do.
In our issue of last month we referred briefly to the death of
Mr. William Leaf, one of the oldest and most earnest adherents
of Homœopathy. Mr. Leaf was such a conspicuous champion
of Homœopathy on its first introduction into England that he
deserves something more than a passing notice in this journal.
Very few professional men, and certainly no laymen, have done
more for the spread of our art than Mr. Leaf. He did not con-
fine his efforts to spending money in this cause, though in this
respect he deserves especial honor as the most munificent patron
of Homœopathy that has yet appeared. During his career he
cannot have given in various ways less than £20,000 towards the
advancement of this system. But he gave also time, thought,
work, influence; and he incurred much obloquy and reproach in
his advocacy. We cannot pretend to present a full account of all
Mr. Leaf did—we believe that a more complete memorial of him
is in preparation and will be published shortly. The most im-
portant facts we shall, however, endeavor to record.
Mr. Leaf's introduction to Homeopathy occurred about the
year 1833. He was then very ill-not with any acute disease,
but from a chronic disorder, which no treatment he had pursued
had at all relieved. At this time he had business relations with
M. Arlès-Dufour, then a large silk merchant in Lyons. M. Arlès-
Dufour was an earnest and enlightened homoeopath, and he in-
duced Mr. Leaf to take some medicines which he himself pre-
scribed for him. The effect of these was so remarkable that
Mr. Leaf was encouraged to continue the treatment. He went
over to Paris, where Hahnemann was practicing, and placed
424.
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
himself under his care. Ultimately he was cured, and retained
the health which he then gained up to a very advanced age. It
is plain that Mr. Leaf owed many years of life to homoeopathic
treatment. When he became a patient of Hahnemann's he had
a damaged constitution, one which would not have been pre-
sentable at any insurance office, and his life did not appear likely
to be prolonged more than a few years. He was then 44 years
of age, and he lived to the ripe old age of 84, retaining his
bodily and mental faculties unimpaired up to within a short time
of his death. If Homoeopathy had done nothing more than
giving to the world thirty years of Mr. Leaf's life, it certainly
deserves the gratitude of society. Mr. Leaf was so impressed
with the striking results of homoeopathic treatment in his own
case that he at once placed his family under the same treat-
ment. He became an intimate, personal friend of Hahnemann;
went over to Paris every year to see him, and induced him to sit
for his portrait, which is retained as an heirloom in the family.
Several of Hahnemann's letters to him also are carefully pre-
served, with a lock of the venerable master's hair. The letters
are in French, with one exception, which is in English. They
refer almost exclusively to medical treatment, and have no
special interest for the public. They give, however, an in-
cidental illustration of the vigor of Hahnemann's mind, who was
able to write with such accuracy and ease in two foreign
languages. In the English letter there is scarcely a phrase
which betrays the foreigner.
When Mr. Leaf became convinced of the truth of the new
system of medical treatment, he was not the man to allow such
a conviction to remain as a barren and neglected mental posses-
sion. He at once exerted himself to introduce it to his personal
friends, to all members of the medical profession that he had
access to, and to the public at large, by bringing Dr. Curie over
to England to practice it both privately and in dispensaries and
institutions which he either founded or liberally supported. He
was persuaded by his friend, M. Arlès-Dufour, to bring over Dr.
Curie in the year 1835. Dr. Curie resided in his house for about
a year, till he could speak English well enough to practice.
Mr. Leaf then guaranteed him a handsome income till he was
able to make his practice remunerative. Owing to Mr. Leaf's
help, Dr. Curie was soon engaged, not only in extensive private
4
OF HOMEOPATHY.
425
practice, but also in conducting several dispensaries for its more
general introduction to the public. His first effort of this kind
was at his own house in Finsbury Circus. This continued
about two years. Then he separated his dispensary work from
his private practice by taking rooms for the dispensary in St.
Martin's-le-Grand, and in Ely Place, Holborn. When Dr. Curie
removed to the West End he continued to attend at Ely Place
till the Hahnemann Hospital was founded in Bloomsbury Square.
This was done chiefly at Mr. Leaf's expense, and he was at the
same time contributing liberally towards the Homoeopathic In-
stitution in Hanover Square. During the whole of the rest of
his life he was a liberal supporter of homeopathic dispensaries
both in his own neighborhood, Brixton and Streatham, and in
distant localities..
In this work Mrs. Leaf co-operated with him most energet-
ically. They established a dispensary indeed at their own house
at Streatham, which Dr. Curie attended every Sunday, and
where poor people and even cattle and horses belonging to their
neighbors were treated. Mrs. Leaf would dispense the medi-
cines as Dr. Curie prescribed them, and in this good work the
Sunday afternoons were very actively employed. Mrs. Leaf also
regularly every week visited the Hanover Square Institution,
and encouraged her friends also to inspect the results of the
treatment pursued there.
But Mr. Leaf did more than contribute liberally towards the
support of these different institutions. He studied Homœopathy
in the French works, which were at that time the only ex-
positions of it accessible to him. He became very skilled in the
practice of Homeopathy; that he should have become so is the
more remarkable when we consider that this was only a
subordinate pursuit, and that he was actively engaged in con-
ducting a large business at the same time. Doubtless Dr. Curie
assisted him in any difficult case that he undertook the charge
of, but his own study rendered him to a great extent independ-
ent of such help. He had a number of patients at Eastbourne,
who came to his house there for assistance. No trouble was
too great for him; no effort was spared in order to spread
the knowledge of what Homoeopathy was, and could do. On more
than one occasion he took a journey (not a railway journey then)
426
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
to Worthing and other distant places, merely to help poor in-
valids whom he was trying to benefit.
As Mr. Leaf became better acquainted with the resources of
Homœopathy, he was unceasingly anxious to induce medical
men to study and practice it. Doubtless he first looked at their
relation to Homoeopathy from a business point of view. As a
man well versed in commercial transactions, he knew that rapid,
brilliant and lasting cures would add to the reputation and in-
crease the practice of any medical man who could effect them.
He was therefore very earnest in bringing it under the notice of
his medical friends, being well assured that it would prove a
commercial success to any medical man who could master it and
practice it with skill. He naturally thought that he had only to
point out this medical El Dorado to his professional friends to
induce them at once to appropriate its advantages. He was not
prepared for the opposition which he encountered. He thought
only of the truth and value of the new system, its power to
alleviate suffering and prolong life, and make life itself more
fruitful in all good results. And he naturally thought that his
medical friends would also keep these aims paramount over all
lower considerations. But to his cost he found that the love of
truth and the desire to cure disease and relieve pain and weak-
ness were not always the supreme influences in the medical
profession. His earnest advice was repelled with anger and
contempt. Many of his friends despised him as a fanatic or a
madman, and for many years he was exposed to an amount of
reproach and social obloquy that would have daunted a less
resolute nature. Doubtless this was a kind of experience well
fitted to bring out and ripen all the best qualities of his nature.
A man of wealth has every inducement to shirk the battle of
life and enjoy the ease which affluence places within his reach.
Mr. Leaf was delivered from this snare by his championship of
Homœopathy, at a time when such advocacy brought with it
contempt and reproach even more than it does now.
Mr. Leaf's enthusiasm for Homœopathy led him to write a
pamphlet in exposition of it. It was published anonymously by
Leath, and went through several editions. The copy before us,
dated 1842, is one of the "fourth thousand." The title is:
"Homœopathy Explained and Objections Answered." This
little work of forty-seven pages is written with considerable
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
427
vigor and skill. The topics are arranged in an orderly and log-
ical way, and the arguments in favor of Homoeopathy presented
with much force of expression and illustration. As a specimen
we extract Mr. Leaf's answer to the objection that the cures of
Homœopathy are attributable to the faith and imagination of the
patient. To this he replies:
"The objection here made presupposes that a patient has faith
in Homœopathy, and is thereby cured; the inference therefore
is, that if equal faith had been placed in Allopathy that system
would equally have cured him. But has not the same amount
of faith been accorded to the old school and its adherents? and
if so, has it in all, or in the majority of instances, effected a cure?
Now, as faith in any system of medicine can only be the result
of its works, it is evident that Homeopathy must have been
successful, or it could never have established the faith. But this
objection is indeed exceedingly futile: for it is clear that if the
success of Homoeopathy depended upon the faith of the public,
it never could have advanced a single step, since by far the
greater number of persons who resort to its aid do so not only
without faith in its powers, but absolutely with a prejudice.
against it, and really have recourse to it as a forlorn hope, after
the old school has signally failed to give them the relief which
they require. Such, in fact, was my own case, when I first
reluctantly consented to make a trial of its remedies. I did so,
as I have already stated, at the earnest entreaty of a friend, and
without the slightest expectation or belief that means apparently
so trifling and inadequate could effect any sensible change, either
good or bad, upon my constitution. The most beneficial effects,
however, were produced, and upon these effects my faith has
been built, which faith has been confirmed and increased by
every day's experience.
And then he proceeds to notice the efficacy of Homoeopathy in
the diseases of the lower animals and children, where faith is
necessarily absent.
Mr. Leaf was born March 21st, 1791, and died July 3d, 1874,
in the 84th year of his age. He had eleven children, two of
whom died in infancy, four died after they were grown up, five
survive him. At the time of his death he had forty-two grand-
children, having lost three, and eight great-grandchildren. He
was a warm-hearted, benevolent man-not wearing, however, all
""
C
428
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
his good qualities on the surface, for it was necessary to know
him well to find out all the tenderness and sympathy that were
often disguised by a somewhat blunt and reserved manner.
Indeed we have sometimes found that his feelings were often in
the inverse proportion to his expression of them, so that you
only discovered how deeply his sympathies were stirred by the
acts of benevolence which they prompted. Often, however, he
would unburden himself of the wealth of his inner feelings by
writing what he would not trust himself to speak. He was a
devout Christian man, and the faith which prompted his good
deeds sustained him in the heavy sorrows which the loss of his
children caused him, and made his last hours tranquil and
triumphant. (Mo. Hom. Rev., vol. 18, pp. 526, 584. Rapou, vol.
I, p. 77.)
LEBOUCHER. Was one of the pioneers of Homoeopathy
in Paris.
LEDERER, THOMAS. Was practicing in Vienna in 1824.
Rapou says: The Doctor Lederer, who was a friend of P.
Franck, and who is to-day (1846) physician to the Metternich
family, is distinguished among all the Viennese homoeopaths for
his great learning and powerful intellect. Lederer was, during
seven years, the first asssistant of Boer, Professor of Obstetrics
and of the Diseases of Women in the General Hospital. There
is hardly an establishment in the world where the practice of
midwifery is carried on on so large a scale, where they attend,
on an average, from 2,500 to 3,000 a year. Boer, careful and
often on account of feeble health, allowed Lederer to take
charge of the immense practice and also to conduct alone the
clinic in his place. Lederer prescribed like his master, and,
like him, lost by the hundreds women in beds tainted with
metro-peritonitis and puerperal fever. Later he modified the
treatment, but without changing the per cent. of the mortality,
which had occurred under the influence of a typhiod taint that
had remained in Vienna since the epidemic of that disease. He
said that in 1819 he saw perish under the influence of Calomel in
large doses, six hundred women, who were confined, in three
months. The same results were to be found in all the great hos-
pitals. What was to be done?
It was during these deceptions of practice that he sought to
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
429
distract his mind with literary studies. He had occasion to read
the "Organon" of Hahnemann, whose doctrine had commenced
to make itself known in Austria. He was struck with the origi-
nality of the book and of the prefaces of the Materia Medica.
He sought faith in Homoeopathy as an art for healing and de-
voted himself to his studies. After having analyzed the new
doctrine he made haste to apply it to these terrible maladies of
the lying in women, for whom he had been in despair. He
thought it prudent to call to his aid in this matter the counsels
of Dr. Franz, pupil of Hahnemann, whom he found at that time
in Vienna. This physician, little versed in the treatment of this
sort of disease, could furnish only vague indications; these he
gave to him. Lederer was not discouraged; he found a great
diminution in the mortality, and from that time he was connted
among the practitioners of the new art.
Lederer is known in Vienna as a very good obstetrican, and
has repute among his brethren for his skillful treatment of the
diseases of women.
Lederer commenced to practice in 1809 to 1811, at the age of
fifteen or sixteen. He was then chosen by the Professor Kern
to operate before Larrey and his colleagues, as he was well quali-
fied to give them an exalted idea of the operative talent of the
young German surgeons.
Rapou continues: I prefer the society of Lederer to that of
the greater part of our colleagues. His frank and open char-
acter, a natural eloquence, the original turn of his wit, an inde-
pendence, a trifle rude, pleases me greatly. They brought to
Lederer one day an infant who had a headache caused by a sun-
stroke, a circumstance of which the parents did not speak. He
saw the existence of a cerebral congestion and that it might be
due to dentition. But looking at the general symptoms he
thought of the headache of insolation and gave Rhus, a remedy
which was called for by the cause and which covered the symp-
toms. He obtained speedy cure, a result which would not have
resulted from Belladonna, which is indicated in simple cerebral
congestion. Allopathy with its generalizations would not have
made so delicate an observation.
Lederer is an exact homœopath, but very stubborn in his ex-
clusiveness. He has no wish to experiment on medicines nor to
try the high potencies of these later times.
430
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
The following appears in the Allg. hom. Zeitung: On January
27th (1874) there died at Vienna the Nestor of Homœopathy
there, Dr. Thomas Lederer, in his 86th year. He had in the
last year retired from practice. He was very much liked as a
man and esteemed as a physician. Physician in ordinary to
Princess Melanie Metternich. Vigorous and enthusiastic even to
his last years, he had the appearance of new life, active man-
hood, especially in literary matters, of which he was a careful
and interested observer. He was interested in philosophical
studies, especially in those of Kant and Schopenhauer. He was
the author of but one book, "Mother and Child." He left one
son, Dr. Emilio Lederer. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 88, p. 56.
World's Con., vol. 2, p. 204. Rapou, vols. 1, 2. Kleinert, p. 165.
LEHMANN. The name appears on the list of homoeopathic
practitioners publisned in the Zeitung in 1832; he was then
located at Zwickau. Quin also places him in the same place in
1834.
LEHMANN. June 29, 1860, Hofrath Dr. Lehmann, of Dres-
den, is dead. The name appears on the Zeitung list of 1832 and
on that of Quin in 1834. He was then practicing at Dresden.
There were three Lehmanns, one at Coethen, who was Hahne-
mann's assistant; one at Zwickau, and the surgeon Lehmann, of
Dresden. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 61, p. 8.)
LICHTENFELS, F. VON. Died 1854. He practiced in Vienna
for many years. His name appears on the Zeitung list of 1832.
He was
a contemporary of the Veiths, Marenzeller, Arnold,
Lederer and Wricha. (See also Rapou, vol. 1, p. 263; vol. 2, p.
Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 12, p. 168.)
660.
LEIDBECK, PETER JACOB. The editor of the British
Journal of Homeopathy for January, 1877, says: Dr. P. J. Leid-
beck, known all over Scandinavia and by large circles abroad,
departed this life, at Stockholm, in his seventy fifth year, on the
5th of October last. He had hardly arrived home, late in the
evening, from his daily round of visits to his patients, when he
suddenly died from paralysis of the heart; thus he actually died
in harness as he often had wished. His life throughout was
full of unceasing activity and struggle. From the first he was,
by a stern father, destined to the clerical profession; but his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
431
own taste was early bent towards medicine, in which, having
already as a schoolboy read Hufeland's "Art of Prolonging
Life," he saw in his youthful imagination a grand and glorious
object.
He was born in 1802, admitted as a student at the University
of Upsala 1821, became a licentiate of medicine in 1831, and
graduated as M. D. in 1835. He commenced, in 1831, to officiate.
as Prosector of Anatomy at the University, and continued in this
capacity till 1846, lecturing on anatomy for several terms, in-
stead of the then professor at the University. The professorship,
notwithstanding, at the vacancy, passed him by, evidently from
no other cause than his medical heterodoxy. He removed to
Stockholm, devoting himself henceforth exclusively to the prac-
tice of Homœopathy. He had already as a medical student be-
come a convert to Homœopathy, of which he had first heard
mention during a course of lectures on materia medica by the
learned occupier of the Chair of Linnæus, Professor G. Wahlen-
burg, who, though not practicing himself, was a great admirer
of Hahnemann and his doctrine. In selecting as a motto for the
inaugural thesis for his medical diploma, “Qualis sit quantumque
valeat methodus specifica in medicina," Liedbeck had already
shaken off the fetters of the old school, and became, with a
warm, living conviction, a faithful and zealous pupil of Hahne-
mann and expounder of Homœopathy. He had twice visited
the Continent in 1832, principally in order to see Hahnemann,
and he used often to speak of his conversations with and the
teachings of his great Master; in 1844 his Continental tour was
more extensive, undertaken for special anatomical studies at the
expense of the University.
An indefatigable inquirer, a constant and studious reader, he
kept himself au courant with the literature of the different medi-
cal schools. He thus became acquainted with Rademacher's
writings, which no doubt exercised a considerable influence on
his practice in late years. The traditional medicine, as living
amongst the people, was also a subject in which he took great
interest, and he even published two essays on the subject, of
which that under the title "Popular Medicine in Contra Distinc-
tion to Medicine and Quackery" (1858) ought to be mentioned.
Among his other writings bearing more directly on Homoeopathy
may be mentioned:
432
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
((
(a) On the Influence of Alcohol on Man," 1831.
(b) "On Homœopathic Medicine and Its Literature," 1832.
c) "Hahnemann's Organon' Translated," 1835.
(d) "Is There a Remedy for Consumption?" 1841.
(e) De Cerebello Humano," 1845.
(ƒ) "De Veneficio Phosphoreo Acuto," 1846.
(g) “A Short Account of the Present State and Development
of Homœopathy in Foreign Countries," 1846.
(h) "Directions for the use of Some Homoeopathic Medicine
in Cholera," 1848.
(i) How to Cure Frostbites and Burns," 1850.
(k) "Homœopathic Information for the Swedish People;" (a
monthly periodical), 1855–56.
(7) "On the Different Schools of Medicine at the Present
Time, and Their Principal Distinctions," 1862.
(m) "On the Spirit of Camphor Alone as a Remedy for
Cholera," 1866, etc.
""
He was at one time a frequent contributor to the German
homœopathic periodicals; also in this country interesting con-
tributions from his pen have appeared. In his practice of
Homœopathy, he leaned more towards Hahnemann's early
practice, as known by his "Lesser Writings," than towards his
later teachings as to the exclusive use of the higher dilutions.
By studying the question of diet and regimen in a country
where the eating of salted food is very prevalent, he came to the
conclusion that salt-eating was a cause of many ailments, thus
confirming an old observation of Linnæus, who called a form of
pyrosis from salt eating pyrosis suacica. Liedbeck's papers on
"Haliphagismus " are, if not exhaustive, at any rate interesting
as an incentive to further investigation on the subject. Pursuing
the subject of dietetics still further, he recommended the use of
what has lately been called food medicines, and gave special indi-
cations for their use. Thus originated with him what he called
the homœoplastic treatment, which he meant to be used as a com-
plement to Homoeopathy, thus annexing what will remain true
in physiological medicine to the central truth of Homoeopathy,
similia similibus curentur.
23
Notwithstanding the most indefatigable work for more than
forty-five years there is none at present in Sweden who can take
Liedbeck's practice. This can only be explained by the com-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
433
pact opposition of an organized state medicine which all these
years has met the single-handed champion of Homœopathy in
Sweden whose loss we now record.
In 1876 Dr. Liedbeck sent the "History of Homoeopathy in
Sweden" to the World's Convention, held in Philadelphia. It
was published in the Transactions," vol. 2. The Bibliog-
raphy of Swedish Homœopathy" is also that of the writings of
Liedbeck. In this Dr. Liedbeck says: There is no special law
affecting Homœopathy or its practitioners in Sweden. I have
the privilege of dispensing my own medicines, and, like every
other properly qualified Swedish physician, the right to import
drugs for my own practice, after having first given due notice to
the Royal College of Health.
As to my own practice, I would only briefly mention that,
having first filled several official medical appointments, I ob-
tained the post of Professeur Agregé (Prosector Anatomix) at
the University of Upsala in 1831. This made me in some meas-
ure independent of the uncertainty of practice, giving me at the
same time liberty to practice Homœopathy. As I had on several
occasions officiated instead of the professor of anatomy in giving
lectures, holding examinations, etc., I had a fair prospect at his
retirement of succeeding to the chair of anatomy. My medical
heterodoxy was, however, too well known not to influence to my
prejudice in the appointment of a successor, and I therefore re-
moved, in 1846, to Stockhoim, where I have since continued as a
private practitioner of Homœopathy.
Though, as I have said before, neither the success of my prac-
tice nor my publications seem to have had any influence on the
medical profession at large in making converts among them, yet
Homœopathy has not a few patrons and followers in all classes
of society, and several of the clergy have in this country as else-
where been warm advocates, and even practitioners, of the
system.
As to the question of dose, it will be seen from sundry articles
emanating from my pen from time to time that I belong rather
to those who follow Hahnemann in his early practice than in his
old age, when he advocated almost exclusively the higher attenu-
ations. Not to make this letter too long, I must also refer you to
the homœopathic literature as regards the homoeoplastic treat-
ment I have introduced as a supplement to our Homeopathy.
"
((
434
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
He
The Zeitung thus announces his death: At the end of Octo-
ber of this year (1876) died Dr. Liedbeck, in Stockholm, who
had practiced Homœopathy there successfully for 30 years.
was 75 years of age, and died of marasmus. He communicated
to us last year several cures of hygroma patella with Flor. arnic.
sicc. placed upon the kneepan in little sacks. His own cure from
fatty degeneration of the heart by means of Arnica, as given in
my "Therapy" (I, 345), was by Dr. Argenti erroneously as-
cribed to the deceased; it was communicated in epistolary form
in vol. 92, No. 11, p. 88. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 13, p. 694;
vol, 35, p. 90; vol. 39, p. 255. Mon. Hom. Rev., vol. 20, p. 720.
Hom. World, vol. 11, p. 572.
World's Con., vol. 2, p.340.
Bibl.
Hom., vol. 9, p. 89. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 93, p. 184.)
LIBERT. Was an early pioneer of Homœopathy in Paris.
LINGEN, GEORGE. George Lingen was one of the Allen-
town coterie. We find his name as a subscriber to the Corre-
spondenzblatt. In 1835 he was located at 105 North Seventh
street, Philadelphia, where he also kept homoeopathic medicines
for sale. He afterwards went South. A note in the "Trans-
actions of the American Institute of Homoeopathy" for 1870,
tells that he was a German of fine education, having great taste
for the fine arts. That he had been located at Mobile, Ala., where
he had a fine practice. He died in 1868. He left behind some
very valuable medical MSS. Dr. Malcolm Macfarlan says that
in 1862–63 he met him in Mobile and that he had the principal
practice of that city. (World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 988. Trans.
Am. Inst. Hom., 1870.)
LIUZZI, INNOCENZO. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in
Rome. Quin gives the name in his directory of 1834. Dadea
says that Mauro confirmed in the faith of the new doctrine Dr.
Liuzzi, a fellow-countryman resident in Rome, who had been
converted in 1821, and timidly practiced Homœopathy since that
year, and that he left to Liuzzi the completion of his cures.
(World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 1074.)
LOBETHAL, JULIUS. The British Journal thus mentions
this pioneer of Homœopathy: The death of Dr. Julius Lobethal
is announced (Allg. hom. Zeitung). Dr. Lobethal, who died of
heart disease on the 12th of December, 1874, was born in 1810.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.·
435
In 1831 he greatly distinguished himself by his labors among
the cholera patients in the epidemic of that year, and it was
chiefly his conviction of the inefficacy of the ordinary treatment
of that disease that led him to the study of Homœopathy. He
passed his examination for the doctor's degree in Berlin, in 1833,
and shortly afterwards had the satisfaction to cure his mother of
a pulmonary affection by homoeopathic remedies, after she had
been given up by the allopathic physician in attendance He
settled in Breslau as a homoeopathic physician in 1834, and
speedily obtained a large practice. He met with much opposi-
tion, and had to endure much persecution from the representa-
tives of old physic. He contributed numerous and valuable
practical papers to the Zeitung. In 1841 he published a mono-
graph on Iodine, and introduced a mode of treatment of phthisis,
by means of inhalations of sea water dispersed through the room
in a pulverized form, which is said to have been very successful.
In 1849 he was president of the Central Society of German
Homœopathic Practitioners. In 1861 he published an essay
entitled "The Truth of the Homoeopathic Principle of Cure,'
on the occasion of a jubilee festival of the Breslau University.
He was the founder of an asylum for the aged, which had the
patronage of King Frederick William IV.; and he published
some important mortality tables, which were much used by in-
surance companies. He was one of the original founders of the
Society of Silesian Homœopathic practitioners. (Brit Jour.
Hom., vol. 33, Þ. 531.)
>>
LESCHER, DR. GOTTLOB HEINRICH. According to
information received, Gottlob Heinrich Loescher, Doctor of
Medicine and Privy Sanitary Counselor, died at Luebben, in
Lusatia; he was the director of the Obstetrical Institute there.
Since 1820 he had practiced medicine; he, as far as we know,
became a convert to Homœopathy between the years 1830 and
1840, and through his practical success he gained many ad-
herents and a great fame in the whole of Lusatia. His com-
munications on obstetrics and the diseases of women were not
numerous, but they showed him to be an able physician. He
contributed to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, and is mentioned
in the Zeitung and Quin lists of 1832 and 1834. (A. H. Z., vol.
100, þ. 143.)
436
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
LEVI, HERMANN. His name is in the 1832 Zeitung list
as residing at Vienna. Rapou says: When my father visited
Prague, in 1832, he found the new school represented by two
practitioners, Drs. Schaller and Lovi. He also says that Lœvi
made certain experiments with certain preparations from animals,
and that he enriched the Isopathic materia medica; that he also
was very much in favor of pathological and physiological
knowledge, considering it as necessary to the new school as to
the old. (Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 77, 398.)
LEWE. The Allg. hom. Zeitung, vol. 90, p. 16 contains the
following: "January 1, 1875. Loewe, in Vienna, is dead.
Loewe was of the time of Lederer, the Veiths, Arnold and
Wrecha in Vienna. (World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 204. Allg. hom.
Zeit., vol. 90, p. 16.)
LONGCHAMP, DR. Longchamp was born in Botteus, a
Catholic parochial village in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland,
from one of its most honorable families. Early in life he showed
a great predilection for the study of medicine. A friend of the
family, the celebrated surgeon, Dr. Mayor, in Lausanne, who
recognized his abilites, encouraged his inclination and received
him in the year 1813 as a pupil in the Hospital of Lausanne. In
the year 1815. Longchamp went for his further education to Paris,
where he remained for three years. After receiving there his
diploma as doctor, he undertook a scientific journey to the
southern part of Brazil and Paraguay in company with his friend,
the well known Dr. Reugger. In Buenos Ayres, at that time,
the noted dictator, Dr. Francis, was in power; he assigned a very
advantageous circle of activity to the two travelers, but retained
them for ten years as captives. In spite of the great advantages
and the general respect shown here to Longchamp*, he took the
first opportunity to escape from that country, and returned to
Europe in 1827 and choose Freiburg (Switzerland) for his resi
dence. After practicing there for three years, his attention was
called to the new curative method through an article by Pierre
Dufresne, of Geneva, in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève,
an estimable scientific journal in the year 1831, on the subject
·
❤
*His fame is preserved there to this day, for not long ago a citizen of
that country traveling through Freiburg inquired very particularly for Dr.
Longchamp.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
437
of Homœopathy. Dr. Dufresne, who shortly before, through
diligent study and personal practical experiments, had become.
convinced of the truth of Homoeopathy, at that time, with great
enthusiasm, declared his adhesion to the new curative method,
and through periodical assemblies of physicians called by him,
and through the Bibliothèque homeopathique de Genève which he
founded and published in company with his friend, the learned
Dr. Peschier, he sought to make proselytes for the new school.
One of the first physicians gained by Dr. Dufresne for the new
teaching was Dr. Longchamp. This talented physician devoted
himself with great industry to the study of Homoeopathy, and
soon became a zealous follower of the new doctrine and a very
busy homœopathic practitioner, gaining by his successful and
brilliant cures a fame which spread throughout the country far
and wide. Soon after, he was also nominated as the physician
of the educational institute of the Jesuits, known in the whole
Catholic Europe; this position he retained till the year 1847,
when the Jesuits were expelled from the whole of Switzerland.
Longchamp certainly contributed through his position to the
more general diffusion of knowledge concerning Homœopathy
in extended circles in Europe. This celebrated educational
institute at that time was visited by pupils from the best families
of a large part of Catholic Europe; as physician of this institute,
he was an unusual favorite and celebrated. Many pupils owed to
him their cure from chronic diseases that they had brought with
them. So I myself, though residing at a distance from Freiburg,
have been consulted several times by former pupils of the insti-
tute at Freiburg, because they had learned to know and value
Homoeopathy through Dr. Longchamp.
Longchamp was not only a distinguished homeopathic phy-
sician, but also a very thorough surgeon and operator, who did
honor to his first teacher, the celebrated surgeon Mayor. Guided
by a rich experience and an acute practical penetration, he only
used the knife when he had found the internal treatment to be
unavailing. He was indefatigable in the practice of his pro-
fession. He was ready to give his medical aid to whomsoever
needed it, without making the slightest distinction between the
rich and the poor, which caused him to be loved by the poor
with a real devotion.
Dr. Longchamp, like every other physician who became con-
Uor M
438
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
verted to Homoeopathy, was most violently assailed and attacked
by his allopathic colleagues. But strong and bold through his
success at the sickbed, and being gifted by a most peculiar
courtesy and amiability, he knew how to gradually gain the
respect of his opponents, so that they openly acknowledged his
superiority and admired him for many years as a colleague who,
as it were, stood above them. So, it is said, that during his long-
continued disease (softening of the brain) all his colleagues
gathered round his sickbed, and with childlike reverence offered
him their aid, which was, however, of course in vain.
I am sorry to say that he has left no scientific works behind
him, except some practical communication in the Bibliothèque
homœopathique de Genève. His great services to Homœopathy
consisted, as indicated above, in the fact that he more than most
others contributed to the acknowledgment and diffusion of our
method of healing among the public far and near.
We say
among the public, for despite of the esteem entertained for him
by his colleagues he had not the satisfaction of leaving a homoeo-
pathic successor to his practice. This is a new and additional
example, if it were needed, of the vis inertia, which by far the
greater number of physicians allow to rule over them.
Longchamp died on the 20th of February, 1861. His death
was a great event in Freiburg. It is said that rarely has there
been seen so large a funeral; an innumerable multitude followed
his bier. All classes of society, the richest and the poorest,
crowded together to show their last honor to their familiar coun-
selor and fatherly friend. Long will he continue to live in the
grateful remembrance of his fellow-citizens.
·
DR. SCHAEDLER.
The Quin list of 1834 lotates this physician at Freiburg in
Switzerland. Kleinert mentions him as Longchamp who later
achieved so much fame by his journey to South America.
(Kleinert, p. 165. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 62, p. 96; vol. 64, pp.
40, 48.)
LORENZ, HEINRICH
HEINRICH LUDWIG.
We copy the
present necrological account concerning the Medical Counselor,
Dr. Lorenz, who departed this life on the 14th of December,
1859, at Offenbach, from the Mittelsheunsche Zeitung.
Heinrich Ludwig Lorenz was born at Buedinger, Hessia, on
Maou
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
439
the 11th of January, 1796. He lived with his parents at the
house of his grandfather Eisenhuth, who was district surgeon at
this place. The wide-awake boy often accompanied his grand-
father in his practice in the country, and by this the desire of
devoting himself to the healing art was early awakened in him.
The interest roused in those around him for the intelligent and
studious boy caused him to be instructed in botany and in the
fundamentals by several prominent men, besides his instruction
at the Classical School in Buedingen. As early as the year
1813, Lorenz, only 17 years old, was drawn into the service of
the French hospitals at Schluechtern and Hanau. During the
battle of Hanau, being from his dress supposed to be a French-
man, he was near being killed in the street, and soon after he
was seized by a violent attack of the hospital-fever. After his
recovery he was employed in the hospitals at Ortenberg and
Heussenstamm. How much he distinguished himself in these
ministrations may appear from the fact that a number of
persons in Buedingen and its environs joined together to furnish
him the means necessary to attend the University of Marburg in
the year 1814. After his graduation, he practiced for several
years in his native city, but in 1820 he was appointed assistant
at the Lying in Hospital at Giessen, where he gained the lasting
love and friendship of the Director of this Institution, the Privy
Counselor Ritgen. In the year 1821, Lorenz was appointed
physician in Homberg on the Ohm, and beginning in 1833 he
filled the same office in Vilbel. Here, in the spring of 1847, he
was seized with a severe ailment of the eyes, so that he was
near dying. When by the skillful hand of Dr. Kuechler he
was freed from this ailment, he moved to Offenbach. In the
year 1849, Privy Counselor Lorenz directed the army hospital
during the campaign in Baden, and with so much devotion to
the service that the Grand Duke distinguished him by con-
ferring on him the order of Philip the Magnanimous. His
medical activity now became so extensive and arduous that with
the quantity of business devolving on him as district physician,
and the medical direction of the hospital at Offenbach, there
was literally no moment of leisure left to him. In consequence
Lorenz, in the spring of 1859, felt his strength diminishing, and
in October he was seized with a nervous disease, which passed
over into typhoid fever, to which, in spite of the greatest care
440
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
of several of his medical friends, he succumbed on the 14th
of December.
The character of the deceased was distinguished by piety,
uprightness and indefatigable devotion to duty, which afforded
the patients not only medical aid, but also, where this was im-
possible, heartfelt consolation. He was, however, not only
devoted to science, but also as long as his time allowed it, to
art, for he was a virtuoso on the violoncello.
At what time Lorenz began to devote himself to Homoeopathy
is not stated in this report, though it records that by doing so
Lorenz appeared to very many families both near and at a dis-
tance as a messenger from God. Veneration, love and grateful-
ness accompanied him to the grave, and bind a glorious eternal
laurel wreath to his memory. Not only in the immediate circle
of his activity, but also many hearts from a distance proclaim
thankfully: 'May your memory be ever blessed.” (A. H. Z., v.
59, p. 206; vol. 60, p. 64 )
((
LOPEZ, JOSE. A practitioner of Granada who was cured
of insanity by Homœopathy, by which he was led to embrace
the system and practice it. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 324.)
LUND, HANS CHRISTIAN. Was a contributor to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was practicing.
Homœopathy in Copenhagen, Denmark. His name appears
both on the Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin's list of 1834.
Dr. Oscar Hansen writes: In Denmark the system of Homœop-
athy was not generally known until the year 1821, when Dr.
Lund, a medical practitioner fifty six years old, adopted it. Lund
was a diligent man; he translated into Danish and published a
great number of books on Homœopathy. (See Trans. Internat.
Hom. Congress, Atlantic City, 1891, p. 984.) Lund died in
Copenhagen, April 17, 1846. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 13, p. 694.
Bibl. Hom., vol. 20, p. 44. Internat. Congress, Hom., 1891, p.
984.)
LUTHER, GUSTAVUS. Was one of the pioneers of Hom-
. œopathy in Ireland. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 107. Rapou,
vol. 1, p. 96.)
LUTHER, CARL WILHELM. The Homeopathic World
for November 1, 1876, contains the following: Dr. Carl Wilhelm
OF HOMEOPATHY.
441
Luther, born at Raguhn, Anhalt-Dessau, 1810, died at South-
wick, near Brighton, October 5, 1876. Requiescat in pace.
Through the kindness of Dr. Tuthill Massy, we have received
particulars of our deceased colleague's life, which were ready
for the press when we received an intimation that the relatives
of the late Dr. Carl W. Luther were averse to any life narrative
being published. We keep silence, therefore, with regret, as
the life of our departed colleague was a busy one and possessing
general interest. As a descendant of the great Martin Luther's
brother, as the first pioneer of Homoeopathy in Ireland, and as a
pupil of Hahnemann, our friend who has left us still lives in
history. (Hom. World, vol. II, p. 536. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 96.)
LUX, WILHELM. Was one of the contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was practicing
veterinary Homoeopathy in Leipzig. His name appears both in
the Zeitung and Quin lists. Puhlmann says that the theory if
Isopathy was advanced by Wilhelm Lux (born April 6th, 1796,
died January 29th, 1849), a veterinary surgeon in Leipzig. He
had employed Homoeopathy in veterinary practice since 1820,
but having expected too much with the deficient provings he
was dissatisfied with the results. He presupposed that every
contagious disease carried in its contagium the means of its cure;
and therefore as a remedy against anthrax he diluted up to the
30th potency a drop of the blood from an animal afflicted with
the same disease. He very soon proceeded in like manner with
a series of pathological products, as the contents of pustules
from sheep, of cowpox, itch, the pus of syphilitic ulcers, pus
running from ears; in short, with about all the secretion and
excretions of the human body. To these preparations he gave
high-sounding names, as Otorrhinum, Variolinum, Anthraxi-
num, etc., and recommended them for the cure of the same dis-
eases from which the crude substances had been taken, his motto
being Æqualia æqualibus instead of Similia similibus.
In 1833 he published a pamphlet, "Isopathy of Contagia," and
in 1837 a small book, "Zooiasis, or Homoeopathy in Its Appli-
cation to the Diseases of Animals." Dr. Gross, one of Hahne-
mann's most faithful followers, advocated this new system for
some time, and Dr. Stapf also believed that Homoeopathy would
attain a higher degree of perfection by the introduction of this
new heterodoxy.
442
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Hahnemann himself warned his followers, in 1833, against
such eccentricities, and Dr. Rau pronounced the whole method
to be mystic and disgusting, yet the number of adherents who
at least proposed to test it gradually increased. L. Gentzke also
fought against it. His views of contagious diseases coincide with
those held by many at the present time, viz., that contagia are
living organisms which can be developed only under certain con-
ditions, and that these organisms could be entirely destroyed by
the process of attenuation. This view gradually became preva-
lent and Isopathy was buried.
Rapou says: "I saw in Leipzig the celebrated veterinary Lux,
who was the first to apply the homoeopathic treatment to the
diseases of animals. Notwithstanding the difficulties of that
practice, where the rarity of symptomatic expressions made the
indications very obscure, Lux obtained a great success, and the
results of his immense practice enabled him to pass the time
very agreeably in a little villa near Leipzig where he devoted his
leisure to some specialties in the new practice and published a
monthly journal of homoeopathic veterinary medicine, entitled
Zooiasis. Rapou then continues to give an account of Lux's ex-
periments in Isopathy. *** * * Rapou continues that Lux
practiced all over Saxony and among the partisans of the two
methods, having a reputation as a skillful veterinary. He pos-
sessed a larger collection of medicines than I had yet seen, not
excepting Wahle, of Rome. He had the kindness to allow me
to take from him three vials of medicines which I had wished to
procure from him, Psoricum, Anthracin, and Hypozoin. This
Isopathy forms an interesting episode in the history of Homo-
opathy.
A very remarkable substance which Lux called Humanine
may be found fully explained in "Dudgeon's Lectures on
Homœopathy." (Isopathy.) (World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 33.
Kleinert, vol. 2, p. 39 (Biog’y). Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 176, 190-99,
202. Dudgeon's Lectures on Homœopathy, p. 150.)
MABIT. Extract from the Courrier de la " Gironde," Bor-
deaux daily newspaper, of the 13th of May.
"
For some time past we have been desirous of devoting a few
lines to the memory of that excellent man, that much-to-be-
lamented philosopher, that enlightened physician, Dr. Mabit,
senior, who has been carried off so cruelly and so suddenly from
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
443
the medical art, from his family, and from his numerous friends.
We perhaps come a little too late, but what does that matter?
Dr. Mabit has already had the purest funeral eulogy in the tears
of his family, in the grief of his friends, and in the grateful re-
membrance of all.
"The intelligence of Dr. Mabit's death produced a great sen-
sation in Bordeaux. No man ever departed this life amidst such
deep regret and such universal sympathy. Dr. Mabit had none
but friends, and how could it be otherwise with a man so earnest,
so good, so disinterested, so full of zeal, whose talents, matured
by the experience of a long practice, were always at the com-
mand of those who stood in need of them? It may be said, the
life of Dr. Mabit was but a long act of devotion, and all who
were intimate with him knew that he was at all times and in
all places, during his long and laborious career, the indefatiga-
ble succourer of all unfortunate beings.
Born at Toulouse, on the 24th January, 1781, M. Mabit first
entered the army of the Alps, in the capacity of surgeon of the
third class; this happened on the 30th Floreal, year 5. M.
Mabit made the campaigns of Italy and Egypt in the capacity
of surgeon of the second class, and on the 5th April, 1802, he
went out to Domingo, where he was wounded in an engagement
at French Cape. M. Mabit, on returning from St. Domingo,
had charge of 300 sick on their way back to France, but he was
taken prisoner by the English. The yellow fever soon broke
out on board the captured vessel, in consequence of the wretched
state in which their captors left the sick who had been captured
whilst returning to France. During all the voyage he alone
performed the medical duties, which act obtained from his
patients a testimonial couched in terms of the deepest gratitude.
On arriving at Plymouth he was confined in the factories,
where he remained two years; at this period an exchange of
prisoners took place; he was included in this exchange, and on
his return to France he entered the naval service, where he re-
mained until 1813. M. Mabit took advantage of his sojourn at
St. Domingo to write a work on the diseases of the army com-
posing the expedition. Between his campaigns he came to Paris
to take his degree of doctor; he was received in the most
brilliant manner, and his diplomas bore this flattering remark:
444
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
"The candidate has given proof of acquirements at once solid
and extensive."
M. Mabit returned to Bordeaux in 1815, where he was in
duced to remain by the friendship of his countrymen, M. De
Saget, and of M. Gradis, sen., and the esteem he had acquired by
the amenity of his character. He was soon appointed professor
in the secondary school of medicine, and physician of the
hospital of St. Andrew, where he remained for twenty years.
"His intimate connection with the illustrious Laennec, and
his searching mind and ardor for investigating new truths, led
him to study, before any one else in Bordeaux, the marvellous
discovery of mediate auscultation, which was not, however, re-
ceived without some opposition, and which now serves as a light
to all educated physicians. We have seen in his cabinet the first
stethoscope which appeared in Bordeaux. This instrument was
turned by the hands of Laennec himself, who sent it to him in
proof of his friendship.
About this period a new medical doctrine, which made a
great noise in France, was the object of the most violent attacks
on the part of the French physicians. Homoeopathy was con-
demned by them as a false, dangerous, and absurd doctrine; it is
true that those who thus calumniated it, knew it not. Dr. Mabit
carried into the study of the new doctrine, which then excited
so much abuse and ill feeling, that disinterested and sincere love
of truth, that scientific impartiality, and that ardor, without
which it is impossible to advance in the culture of science. It
is not for us to pronounce an opinion on Homoeopathy, but what-
ever opinion may be entertained respecting its future destiny,
one cannot refrain from admiring men possessing such great
scientific courage, who, in the lofty situation occupied by M.
Mabit, at the expense of time and fortune, can thus devote their
whole energies to the search after truth.
In 1829 M. Mabit was nominated Member of the Board of
Health. Thither, as elsewhere, he carried his great love of
labor, and he contributed to organize an administration which at
that time was far from efficient.
Sent to London in 1832 to study the cholera, he was taken
seriously ill at Calais; this did not prevent him arriving in time
to observe, and commence a work on this terrible disease. The
reward of so much self-sacrifice, and of labors so useful to
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
445
science, was not long deferred; M. Mabit was about this time
named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Finally, on the re-
organization of the secondary school of medicine, M. Mabit was
elected first professor, and subsequently director of this school.
M. Mabit was an eminent author; he published several
works on the yellow fever, the cholera, and several memoirs re-
lating to his homoeopathic experience. At the time that death
carried him off, he was, it is said, preparing a work on internal
pathology, the results of forty-five years' experience.
[We have before us two essays by Dr. Mabit: one is entitled,
Observations sur l'Homœopathie, and is intended as a reply to the
Report on Homœopathy, furnished to the French Government
by the Parisian Academy of Medicine. It is written in a digni-
fied and gentlemanlike manner, and nowhere descends to satire.
or invective, the author's desire being evidently rather to pro-
mote the cause of truth by fair and legitimate argument, and to
induce his brethren to investigate the system he advocates, in
order thereby to contribute to the diminution of human suffering
than to exalt one system or set of practitioners at the expense of
another. We should like to see more of this tone and spirit in
the controversial essays on both sides, for it is the elucidation of
truth that should always be aimed at, and this end will be much
more readily attained by carefully avoiding all bitterness, per-
sonalities, recriminations, and ridicule than by pursuing an
opposite course. The other essay by Dr. Mabit is termed
"Etude sur le Cholera," in which he gives the history of that
disease, and the various methods which have been adopted for
its prophylaxis and cure; he enumerates the different homœo-
pathic remedies which have been found efficacious, gives the
particular indications for each, presents the reader with a com-
parative statistical table of the results under homoeopathic and
allopathic treatment, and concludes by giving the details of
fourteen cases selected from those treated by himself in the hos-
pital of Bordeaux, the total number he had under his care hav-
ing been thirty-one, of whom twenty-five recovered and six died,
two of the fatal cases having entered the hospital moribund.
The professorial chair which Dr. Mabit filled at Bordeaux was
that of Pathology.] (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p. 253. Atkin's
Hom. Directory, 1855.)
446
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
•
MACH, JOHN JOSEPH. The British Journal for July,
1856, notes his death: Dr. Mach was born in a small village
of Bohemia, in 1795. His father, being only a poor shoe-
maker, was unable to pay for his education, but this difficulty
was got over by the aid of a few friends, who perceived the
abilities of the boy and sent him to the University of Prague,
where he diligently pursued the study of medicine and
in due time passed his examination with great eclat. In the
year 1829 he settled down to practice in Carlsbad, and here.
he became acquainted with the doctrines of Hahemann, to
which he soon became a zealous convert. He married in 1831
and removed to Warnsdorf, a manfacturing town on the borders.
of Saxony, where he practiced with much success. Born and
brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, his enquiring mind led
him to examine the bases of this religion, and thinking they
did not agree with the scheme of Christianity as he found it laid
down in the Bible he occasionally stated his doubts to his
friends. On the 7th day of April, 1845, he was suddenly seized
upon by the police, and without any trial thrown into a damp
dungeon to which no ray of light penetrated, and where he lay
for eighteen weeks before he was liberated. The consequence of
this cruel treatment was that he lost all his teeth by scorbutus,
his nails ulcerated, and he showed all the signs of general decom-
position of the blood. His lost health he never entirely recovered.
A kind of lupus appeared on his nose, extending to the eyes, one
of which it destroyed. Notwithstanding his sufferings he con-
continued to practice almost to the day of his death, which took
place on November 12, 1855.
·
The Zeitung gives the following: Died on the 11th of Novem·
ber, 1855, John Joseph Mach, in Warnsdorf in Bohemia. (Allg.
hom. Zeit., vol. 51, p. 64. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 528.)
MAINOTTI, ALEXANDER. His name appears on the list
of homoeopathic physicians published in the Zeitung of 1832, at
which time he was practicing Homoeopathy in Travnik in
Bosnia. He was also one of the contributors to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829.
MALAISE, L. Dr. Malaise settled in Leige, Belgium.
In 1835 we find him, in the Vol. 4 of the Biblio-
thèque Homœopathique (No. 11) giving his experience in Homœ-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
447
opathy in the hospital of Leige under the scrutiny of an allo-
pathic physician. (Bib. Hom., vol. 4. Also, Am. Jour. Hom.,
1835, p. 77.)
MALY, JOH. C. Rapou says that he was in practice in
Graetz in Styria about 1832. He was also one of the contribu-
tors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 213.)
MALZ. Was an early practitioner of Homoeopathy in Graetz,
in Stuermark or Styria. Both the Zeitung list of 1832 and Quin's
list of 1834 locate him at that place.
MANSA, EDWARD. Came from Germany in 1832 or 1833,
settled in Buffalo township, Armstrong county, Pa., and began
to practice Homoeopathy. He remained there until 1857, when
he went to Illinois, and from thence to Missouri, where he died
in 1870. (World's Con. vol. 2, p. 672.)
MANZELLI. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy in Venafro,
Italy. Quin gives the name in his list of 1834.
MARCHAND, LEON. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy at
Bordeaux, France.
MARCHESANI. The name appears on Quin's list of 1834.
He was an allopathic physician, one of the Commission of six
appointed by the King to oversee Dr. De Horatiis' experiments
in Homœopathy in the Trinity Hospital, in Naples, in 1829. So
impressed was he by the result that he was not only converted
to Homœopathy, but defended the trial from calumny. (World's
Con., vol. 2, p. 1079.)
MARENZELLER, DR. Dr. Marenzeller was a contempo-
rary of Hahnemann. He was connected with the first homœo-
pathic experiments, performed by order of the emperor, in the
military hospital at Vienna.
He received the doctor degree in 1788, and became a regi-
mental physician and a professor. In 1815 he became a convert
to the doctrines of Hahnemann, but still remained in the army
and held his post as staff-surgeon for many years after his con-
version. He was appointed by the Arch-Duke John of Austria
his physician in ordinary, which appointment he held until his
decease.
448
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
While attending to his military duties in Prague at the in-
valid hospital he was also investigating Homoeopathy. In 1823.
we went with the Illustrious General Schwartzenberg, from
Vienna to Leipzig, where the General was placed under the care
of Hahnemann, and where Marenzeller assisted in the treatment,
and where he remained until the death of the Prince Schwartzen-
berg.
-
Rapou says that the introduction of Homœopathy into
Austria is due to Marenzeller. Count Gyulay, commanding
general and field marshal, claimed the professional attentions
of the Homœopathic Military Surgeon Marenzeller for a painful
cardialgia considered incurable, and from which he had suffered
many years. The malady yielded promptly to homoeopathic
treatment. Marenzeller, wishing to aid the general interests of
the homoeopathic school, refused the most generous fee of the
general, demanding from him as an only recompense to ask from
the emperor a more liberal policy regarding Homœopathy, which
method had been before this time very harshly treated by the
government. The emperor, struck by the prompt cure of Count
Gyulay, with the petition and the conduct of the physician,
decided to determine the value of this new system by a series of
public experiments. The choice of the physician to conduct
them naturally fell upon Marenzeller. He was the most suit-
able; forty years in practice, during all which time he had been
head of a large military hospital, for ten years having used
homoeopathic medicine, he presented all the conditions requisite
for experiment to be confided to him. It was a delicate affair,
for upon its success depended the introduction of Homœopathy
in Austria, and it was necessary to conciliate and make friendly
the authorities. The emperor sent him a personal letter, and
clinical experiments were commenced in the Garrison Hospital
at Vienna. Dr. Marenzeller was not allowed to publish an
account of these experiments, but Dr. J. Schmidt kept an
accurate account of them, which account he gave to Hahnemann,
who sent it with some remarks to the Archiv, v. 10, pt. 2, p. 73.
A ward containing twelve beds was set apart in the chief
garrison hospital at Vienna. A commission of twelve professors
of Joseph's Academy, with the Chief Staff Surgeon, Dr. von
Isfordink, at its head, was appointed to watch the experiments.
The ward was provided with a homoeopathic pharmacy, and a
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
449
library of homoeopathic books to consult in uncertainty. Two
regimental, two superior and two inferior surgeons were ap-
pointed, whose sole duty it was to see that the orders of the
homœopathic physician were carried out. Special nurses were
appointed. A special kitchen was set apart for the preparation
of food for the homoeopathic patients, and there was a cook
who had been especially instructed in preparing food according
to the homoeopathic regimen. The surgeons kept watch night
and day, in order that nothing should be given to the patients
but what the homoeopathic physicians ordered. Most of the
patients were taken in as new patients, though there a few who
had been in the other wards. Dr. Marenzeller paid a visit every
morning and evening at fixed hours, and each time two pro-
fessors from the Joseph Academy were present. Each two of
the professorial commission acted for ten days, when two more
replaced them. This clinic opened on April 2, 1828, and lasted
for forty days, during which forty-two patients were treated.
Many medical visitors were usually present at each visit. At
each visit the patients were examined and the result was entered
word for word in a book. The diagnosis and prognosis were
made by Dr. Marenzeller and the members of the commission
respectively. Dr. Marenzeller then made the prescription, gave
directions for diet, and all this was entered in the book and
subscribed to by the members of the commission. This took place
with every patient and at every visit. The medicine prescribed
was always given in the presence of the commissioners. Even
other precautions were taken for a fair trial. Dr. Schmidt took
notes at each visit, and these are the notes that were published.
In all, forty-three patients were admitted. Four by the hom-
œopathic physician; nine by the commissioners; twenty nine
from new admissions to the hospital; one came back in conse-
quence of a relapse; thirty-two were cured; one died; five were
transferred to other wards. When the experiment ceased five
were uncured, but improving. The judgment of the commission
of inquiry consisting of the twelve professors of allopathic medi-
cine was: "The experiments terminated in such a way as to
make it impossible to say that they were in favor of or against.
Homœopathy." (See Archiv f. hom. Heilkunst, vol. 10, pt. 2,
p. 73. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 12, p. 320. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 238.
Trans. World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 200.)
-
450
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
The closing of this clinic was brought about by four convicts,
who were told that they were brought there to be experimented
upon. They offered active resistance and induced other patients
to do the same. While the trial was in progress, Dr. Marenzel-
ler was given an audience by the emperor, who received him
kindly and expressed satisfaction at the results of the experi-
ments, of which he received daily reports. That Marenzeller
was himself satisfied with his success is shown by the fact that
he left a very lucrative practice in Prague and removed to Vienna
in 1829. He is said to have been overwhelmed with patients
from morning till late at night and died at his post.
The results of these experiments were not allowed to be pub-
lished in the Austrian journals, but they were published May 27
and June 6, 1828, in the Allgemeine hom. Zeitung, and also in a
German political journal of more extended circulation.
In 1835, the Austrian emperor died, and it was said that his
death was hastened by too profuse blood letting. His brother,
the Archduke Antoine, died of the same inflammatory affection,
also with profuse blood letting. The Archduke John, called the
Nimrod of Steyermark, being also taken ill, declared that he
would have a physician of the school that did not believe in
bleeding. Marenzeller was called. The contrast between this
treatment and that of the others made a great impression upon
the Court, and the progress of Homœopathy was given new im-
pulsion and the number of its practitioners increased sensibly.
Rapou, who visited the principal countries of Europe in 1846,
has told us much about the early homoeopathists in his "His-
toire de la Doctrine Medicale Homœopathique." He says: The
old Marenzeller, whom I had seen in 1832 (when he travelled
through Germany with his father), is constantly occupied in
Vienna with a very large practice. Two carriages are alternately
in service daily, which hardly suffice to take him to his numerous
patients. What should inspire with such ardor a man for a long
time possessed of reputation, riches and honors, be it not the
charm of a truth so long persecuted? For Marenzeller could not
deny that his long experience and his practical talent had formed
a solid track for exact Homoeopathy. He is faithful to
the old precepts, except in the matter of some slight details.
Just as he received it from Hahnemann, so is he conservative.
He held aloof from the discussions of his colleagues, but his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
451
L
name and his opinions were made the object of harsh and unjust
criticisms from these pretended reformers. They thought it an
injury to the new art to thus exaggerate its principles, and to
put an obstacle to its development in thus servilely following the
footsteps of Hahnemann. Marenzeller did not seek to defend
his doctrines; he had found in the works of Hahnemann a logical
method; he had, in the hospital experiments, made a fair and
successful trial and now accepted exact Homœopathy.
During his stay in Vienna Marenzeller was appointed personal
physician to the Archduke John, a title which gave him a posi-
tion in the court.
Dr. Marenzeller died on January 6, 1854, at Vienna, in his 90th
year.
The British Journal contains the following: On the 6th of Jan-
ruary, of the present year, this veteran homoeopath ist died. Un-
like most of those whose deaths we have recently recorded, Dr.
Marenzeller attained a very great age. He had completed his
90th year when he was removed from among us. He was thus
a contemporary of Hahnemann, being only eight years the junior
of our illustrious Master. The name of Marenzeller is intimately
connected with the history of Homœopathy, more especially in
the Austrian dominions, and yet Dr. Marenzeller was no great
writer. His celebrity is chiefly owing to his connection with the
first homoeopathic experiments, performed by order of the em-
peror, in the military hospital at Vienna. At 21 years of age
Marenzeller was a regimental physician and professor. In 1815
he became a convert to the doctrines of Hahnemann; but, never-
theless, he remained in the army, and held the post of staff sur-
geon for many years after his conversion. He was appointed by
the Archduke John of Austria, formerly Regent of Germany, to
be his physician in ordinary, which appointment he continued
to hold till his decease.
Our opponents are constantly in the habit of referring to the
experiments of Andral as being a complete refutation of the pre-
tended efficacy of Homœopathy. Now these experiments, if they
deserve that name, were performed by a man totally ignorant of
Homœopathy, in defiance of Hahnemann's rules, and with a
carelessness and presumption perfectly inexcusable in a man of
Andral's reputation. The merest tyro in Homoeopathy would
have been ashamed to call such practice Homœopathy. And
452
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
yet
these
experiments, which we reject with scorn,
and which have been over and over again shown
to be deficient in every element that could constitute them
illustrations of homeopathic practice, are the stalking horse of
all the opponents of Homœopathy, and their ready excuse for
not taking the trouble to enquire experimentally into the truth
or falsity of our assertions relative to the superiority of the sys-
tem we practice. On the other hand, the real homoeopathic
experiments performed by Dr. Marenzeller, under every condi-
tion that a watchful jealousy could suggest, in order to assure
their genuine homoeopathic character, and with all the accom-
panying pride, pomp, and circumstance of imperial-royal decrees,
commissions, protocols, daily registers, weekly bulletins, and
solemn reports, are never now referred to; the ipse dixit of
Andral, as to the unsuccessful issue of his own experiments in
an art of which he was utterly ignorant, being held to be more
conclusive than the deliberate report of a commission appointed
by the Austrian Government to inquire into the practice of
Homœopathy by a homoeopathic physician.
As we believe no account of Dr. Marenzeller's experiments has
as yet been published in English, we take the opportunity sug-
gested to us by the death of the principal actor in connexion.
with these experiments, to give a succinct account of them, drawn
from the official documents and the testimony of impartial and
honourable eye-witnesses. These records are contained in
various volumes of the Archiv für hom. Heilkunst.
These homoeopathic experiments were, as will be hereafter
seen, conducted by order of the Government, with every pre-
caution that could secure fair play to the homoeopathist during
their performance. A daily record of the cases treated was kept:
by the medical commissioners appointed to watch the treatment..
But two mistakes were committed by the Government. One
was, that it was not made a condition that these records should
be published. The consequence of this oversight was, that the
reports of the commissioners were kept secret, and it is only by
accident that that of the two commissioners who were appointed!
to follow the treatment during the third ten days of its continu--
ance (for the commissioners appointed to watch the treatment
were changed every ten days) has seen the light. This report
fell into the bands of Dr. Attomyr, after the death of one of the
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
453
commissioners, and was published by him in the 18th vol of the
Archiv, twelve years after the experiments had been made. The
other mistake made by the Government was, that the hostile
allopathic faculty of the Academy of Medicine were constituted
the judges of the success or reverse of the treatment. The
consequence of this error was, that the bald judgment of the
faculty was alone issued, and the facts on which this judgment
was framed were withheld by them.
The deliberate judgment of the faculty, consisting of twelve
professors of allopathic medicine, was as follows:-"The experi-
ments terminated in such a way as to make it impossible to say
that they were in favour of, or against Homœopathy." Had the
experiments turned out unfavourably for Homoeopathy, it is to
be presumed the faculty would have been too happy, not only to
say so, but to prove the truth of their accusation by publishing
the reports of their professors. And even had the experiments
warranted the judgment given, it is but natural to suppose that
the faculty would for their own sakes have published the facts
in order to justify their conduct. The publication of such a
verdict without any corroborative facts, naturally makes us sus-
pect that the facts did not warrant the conclusion nominally
drawn from them, that in a word the experiments were more
favourable to the new system than is implied in the words of the
judgment. Two out of twelve judges dissented from the verdict
recorded. The one, Professor Zang, from his own observation
of the cases treated during ten days, came to the conclusion that
the facts showed Homoeopathy to be perfectly powerless-the
other, Professor Zimmermann, was so convinced of the contrary,
that he confessed himself forced to acknowledge that Homo-
opathy had a real power over disease, and from that day he set
himself to study the principles and practice of Hahnemann's
system, and became a zealous partisan of Homoeopathy.
We are not however left to depend entirely on the fragmentary
report of the two commissioners for the knowledge of Dr. Maren-
zeller's experiments. Although he himself was precluded from
publishing an account of them, a careful record of the cases was
kept by Dr. J. Schmit, of Vienna, who attended every visit from
the beginning to the end of the treatment, and who communi-
cated the results of his observations to Hahnemann, by whom
they were handed to the Editor of the Archiv for publication.
454
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
From Dr. Schmit's report we are able to give the following par-
ticulars respecting these interesting experiments:
By the command of the Emperor a ward containing twelve
beds was set apart, in the Chief Garrison Hospital in Vienna,
for the purpose of testing the power of Homœopathy. The staff
surgeon, Dr. Marenzeller, a distinguished partisan of the
doctrines of Hahnemann, was summoned from Prague to conduct
the treatment on homoeopathic principles. The commission
appointed to watch and report on the treatment consisted of
twelve professors of the Joseph's Academy and the chief staff
surgeon. The ward was provided with a homeopathic pharmacy,
and a library of homoeopathic works to consult in case of un-
certainty. Two regimental, two superior, and two inferior sur-
geons were appointed, whose sole duty it was to see that the
orders of the homoeopathic physician were strictly carried out.
Special nurses were appointed for the service. A special kitchen
was set apart for the preparation of the food for the homoeopathic
patients, and was presided over by a cook who had been
instructed in the mode of preparing food according to the rules
of the homoeopathic system. The surgeons kept watch day and
night, in order to see that nothing was given to the patients but
what the homoeopathic physician ordered. A few of the patients.
were transferred from the other wards of the hospital, but most
of them were taken in as new patients. Dr. Marenzeller paid a
visit every morning and every evening at fixed hours, and each
time he was accompanied by at least two of the members of the
medical commission. There were usually several others of the
professors present at the examination of the patients. At these
visits the patients were examined, and the examination was
entered in a book, word for word. The diagnosis and prognosis.
were then made by Dr. Marenzeller and the members of the
commission respectively. The former then made the prescrip-
tions, gave directions as to diet, and all this was entered in the
book and subscribed, by the signatures of the members of the
commission. This took place with every patient and at every
visit. The medicine prescribed was always administered in the
presence of the commissioners. Other necessary arrangements
were made to secure a fair and impartial trial of Homoeopathy.
The experiments lasted forty days, during which forty-two
patients were treated. Dr. Schmit was, as before stated, present
OF HOMEOPATHY.
455
at each visit, and from the notes he took from day to day he has
compiled the following table, for the accuracy of which he
vouches. The table speaks for itself without any need of ex-
planation. In most of the cases the principal medicines given
during the disease are indicated, but in some of them they are
not, as Dr. Schmit forgot to register them. That is however of
little importance, as we only wish to know the result of the
treatment, and we have sufficient confidence in Dr. Marenzeller's
skill to be assured they were all prescribed in strict accord-
ance with the homoeopathic principle. We may remark that
Dr. Marenzeller was what we would now call a rigid Hahne-
mannist, at least his treatment was in exact conformity with the
rules of Hahnemann at that period.
Statement of the patients taken into the Homeopathic ward during
the 40 days from the 2nd of April to the 12 of May, 1828.
In all forty-three patients were received. Of these, 4 were
admitted by the homoeopathic physician, 9 by the commissioners,
29 were selected from the new admissions into the hospital, and
one came back after some days in consequence of a relapse. Of
these 43, 32 were cured (or not counting the relapse, 31). One
died. Five were transferred to other wards. When the experi-
ment ended five remained uncured, but on the way to recovery.
The following are the five patients who were transferred to other
wards:
Status morbi, as
entered by the Com-
missioners in the
Protocol.
I Phthisis trachealis.
2 Hæmoptysis.
Length of time,
each was in the
homœopathic
ward.
REMARKS.
10 days This patient was declared to
be incurable
incurable both by Dr.
Marenzeller and the commis-
sioners. Before admisssion he
had been pronounced a con-
firmed invalid.
12 days During this time the hæmop-
tysis occasionally ceased but
returned again. On the 13th
day, Dr. M. declared the pa-
456
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
3 Pleuroperipneu-
monia notha
cum gastrica.
Status morbi, as
entered by the Com-
missiouers in the
Protocol.
4 Febris catarrhalis
cum affectione
chronica pecto-
ris.
5 Peripneumonia
majoris gradus.
tient not only incurable, but
in a very dangerous state.
He was immediately trans-
ferred to the medical wards
and died in a few days.
I day This patient, a Wallachian,
could not speak with any one
in the ward, and he there-
fore urgently requested to be
transferred to that part of the
hospital where his comrades
and countrymen lay. His re-
quest was immediately grant-
ed, as no patient was com-
pelled to allow himself to be
treated homœopathically.
Length of time
each was in the
homœopathic
ward.
REMARKS.
3 days This patient was at Dr. M.'s
request transferred to another
ward, as in consequence of a
presumed organic affection of
the heart and large vessels
nothing could be expected
from the homoeopathic treat-
ment.
This patient was immediately
removed from the homœo-
pathic ward, as he could not
give an intelligible account
of his symptoms, and there-
fore was not suitable for the
experiment.
Of these five patients, No. I was taken in by the homoeopathic
physician, Nos. 2 and 4 by the commissioners. Nos. 3 and 5 were
taken from the new patients.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
457
1 Febris catarrhalis
inflammatoria cum
affectione hepatis.
1 Pleuritis, postea
febris nervosa.
The following died:
Status morbi, as
entered by the Com-
missioners in the
Protocol.
The following thirty-three patients were cured:
2 Edema pedum cum
oppressione
pectoris.
Died Besides the symptoms of the
disease named, he had several
others present that pointed to
a very serious affection of the
viscera of the chest and ab-
domen, which could not be
referred to any distinct noso-
logical name of a disease.
The post-mortem examina-
tion revealed organic altera-
tions in the lungs, liver,
spleen, kidneys and bladder
of such a kind and degree as
to render a cure hopeless.
Before coming into the hos-
pital the patient had drunk a
large quantity of brandy
mixed with pepper.
on
the 7th
day.
10 days After the pleurisy had been
cured (in 2 days) in conse-
quence of a chill the patient
became affected with typhoid
fever. Both diseases were
cured in 10 days. Aconite
and Rhus were the chief reme-
dies.
Length of time
each was in the
homœopathic
ward,
REMARKS.
14 days In this patient, the whole body,
the face and the limbs were
oedematous, and there were
also present, symptoms that
would lead to the suspicion of
commencing hydrothorax.
458
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
3 Icterus (psoricus).
4 Erysipelas facei.
5 Angina inflamma-
toria.
6 Febris tertiana.
7 Febris tertiana.
8 Hepatitis.
9 Pneumonia.
IO Pneumonia
Notha Sydenhami.
II Pneumonia.
Dr. M. considered the op-
pression on the chest to be
owing to cedema of the lungs.
The disease supervened on an
inflammation of the chest,
which had been treated with
venesection and antiphlogistic
purgatives and blisters.
China was the chief remedy.
20 days. This icterus was complicated
with itch and diuresis. Carbo
veg. was the chief remedy.
II days. This erysipelas was combined
with inflammation of the
meninges of the brain; it was
of the vascular character, ex-
tended over the whole head,
and of such intensity, that
every one doubted of the
patient's recovery. Remedies,
Belladonna and Rhus.
4 days Belladonna.
6 days
4 days
7 days
7 days
IO days
Pulsatilla.
Pulsatilla.
China.
Was cured by the third day.
13 days Besides the pneumonia, there
was in this patient, a very
disagreeable state of the mind
to be combated, which led
him to seek to make away
with himself. The remedies
were, Aconite, Bryonia, and
Aurum.
This state of mind was
brought about by malicious
suggestions made
made to him
OF HOMEOPATHY.
459
Status morbi, as
entered by the Com-
missioners in the
Protocol.
19 Febris tertiana,
postea diarrhoea
12 Inflammatio tonsil-
laris.
13 Parotitis.
14 Febris quotidiana.
15 Febris quartana.
16 Angina inflamma-
toria.
17 Diarrhoea sanguinea. 3 days
18 Diarrhoea catarrhalis, 13 days
postea bronchitis
blennorrhoica.
27 Rheumatismus
chronicus.
Length of time
each was in the
homœopathic
ward.
aquosa.
20 Angina catarrhalis.
21 Pleuritis spuria,
cum nota gastrica.
22 Febris tertiana.
23 Pleuritis spuria.
24 Febris tertiana, cum
affectione hepatis.
25 Pleuritis.
26 Catarrhus bronch.
gradus majoris.
28 Diarrhoea aquosa..
29 Catarrhus cum
3 days Belladonna.
4 days
5 days
Pulsatilla.
8 days Pulsatilla.
3 days
Belladonna.
4 days
3 days
4 days
7 days
4 days
against the homœopathic
treatment, and this was one
of the reasons why admis-
sion to the ward was denied
to strangers.
REMARKS.
8 days
7 days
13 days Pulsatilla for the fever, and
Chamomilla for the diarrhoea.
Mercurius niger.
Cham., Arnic., Arsenic.
Bellad., Mercur. niger.
Hyoscyamus.
Pulsatilla.
Aconite, Bryonia.
Nux vomica.
Aconite, Bryonia, China.
Hyoscyam., Cannabis, Conium.
8 days Carbo. veg., Merc. Latterly
some interesting experiments
were made with Digitalis, in
14 days reference to his very slow
pulse. The diarrhoea had
14 days lasted 4 weeks before the
460
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
dispositone phthi-
sica.
30 Febris quotidina.
31 Febris tertiana.
32 Febris tertiana.
Status morbi, as
entered by the Com-
missioners in the
Protocol.
2 Febris tertiana.
3 Hepatitis.
homœopathic treatment.
8 days Pulsatilla. This is the only
case of relapse. Thirteen
days after getting Puls. for
the first time, and after hav-
ing been free from fever for
IO days, he again fell ill.
All the others remained well.
Ipecacuanha.
Nux vomica.
4 Febris quotidiana
c. infarctu lienis.
6 Ulcus syphiliticum
cum bubone.
8 days
8 days
The following five patients were left uncured, but getting better, at
the conclusion of the trial, and were transferred to other wards:
I Ulcus syphiliticum
4 wks.
penis.
Length of time
each was in the
homœopathic
ward.
REMARKS.
Besides having syphilitic
ulcers, this patient was ill in
other respects, and this prob-
ably was the reason of his
slowness in getting cured.
23 days The attacks continued to come
regularly, but were weaker.
21 days This patient had also a chronic
affection of the lungs, which
subsequently became the sub-
ject of treatment.
15 days The attacks recurred, but
always weaker.
5 days Getting well.
Of the cured, Nos. 2, 3, and 6, were chosen by Dr. Maren-
zeller.
Nos. 1, 9, 25, 26, 27, 31, and 32 were chosen by the Commis-
sion.
All the rest, including the one that died, were taken from the
new applicants for admission. Those that remained after the
close of the trial were all from this last source; that is to say,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
461
they were at once sent to the homoeopathic ward after being
seen by the medical inspector, and were chosen neither by the
homœopathic physician nor by the commission.
From the report of Professors Jaeger and Zang that has been
published, we may extract a couple of the cases described more
in extenso than the above, in order to show the character of Dr.
Marenzeller's treatment, and to give the valuable testimony of
his adversaries to its happy effects.
The following case corresponds with that marked No. 6 in the
above list of those cured:
Bed No. I was occupied by the infantry-private, Johann
Hradil. He was admitted the 20th April with febris intermittens
tertiana. The 23d was a day on which he was free from fever.
He got Pulsatilla of the 9th dilution. On the 24th, at half past
nine A. M., he had an attack of fever, slighter than any of the
previous ones. As he had no fever on the 26th, the day that the
paroxysm ought to have come, he was declared to be convales-
cent, and on the 27th was transferred to the convalescent ward.
The next case corresponds to that marked No. 25.
On the evening of the 24th April bed No. 3 was occupied by
Jacob Czikaro, cadet in Baron Meyer's infantry regiment. For
the last four days he had suffered from febris rheumatico gastrica
cum pleuritide spuria, combined with infarctus lienis, the sequela
of a previous intermittent fever. He got Bryonia 18. On the
25th, in the evening, the local affection having increased was
declared to be pleuritis vera. On the 26th, in the morning, the
fifth day of the disease, there occurred critical excretions in the
form of perspiration, urine, and fæces. On the same evening, as
the fever and painful chest-symptoms assumed a dangerous
character, Dr. Marenzeller was asked to declare whether he
would go on with the treatment or not. He stated he would.
With this considerable exacerbation the disease had, at the end
of the sixth day, attained its climax, and on the seventh and
eighth days profuse critical excretions, in the shape of sweat,
epistaxis, urine, and fæcal evacuations, occurred, and the
disease seemed to be on the decline; however, on the eighth
day, there occurred increase of the fever and of the pain in the
affected side of the chest. The fever declined gradually, with
universal nocturnal sweats; but the shooting pain betwixt the
seventh and ninth ribs, felt on touch or deep inspiration, re-
ro
462
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
mained, though less in degree. On the 30th he got China 9.
On the 1st May he was dismissed as convalescent.
These two are the only cases of which the details are given
by Professors Jaeger and Zang that seem worthy of record. The
case of pneumonia (No. 11 in the above list) they merely men-
tion as having been admitted one day, and discharged cured after
thirteen days of treatment. Altogether we cannot help remark-
ing in the report of these illustrious professors, a tendency to
dwell upon the slighter cases, and an attempt to prove their
recovery to be little, if at all, connected with the administration
of the medicine; and on the other hand, we notice that they slur
over the more serious diseases treated by Dr. Marenzeller. If
the reports of all the commissioners were of a similar character,
it is little wonder that a prejudiced academy of allopathic pro-
fessors should not give a verdict favourable to Homœopathy
founded on such records: the fact of their verdict not being
adverse to Homœopathy, speaks to our mind greatly in favour
of the homœopathic treatment of Dr. Marenzeller, as it shows
that all the ingenuity of the inimical reporters could not pervert
the results of the treatment into the basis of a judgment by a
hostile faculty unfavourable to Homoeopathy.
As far as Dr. Marenzeller's experiments in the presence of the
allopaths went, they are undoubtedly much more favourable to
the claims of Homœopathy than the reverse. The only tenable
ground possessed by the commission for their neutral verdict is,
that the experiments were not carried on for a sufficient length
of time, and did not extend over a sufficient number of patients,
to enable them to decide very positively as to the influence of the
treatment adopted. But who is to blame for this? Certainly
not Dr. Marenzeller, who was perfectly willing to continue with
the treatment for any length of time. The time for continuing
the trial was originally fixed at sixty days (a short enough time
assuredly), but it was suddenly interrupted, after only forty days
had elapsed, by order of the government (doubtless at the insti-
gation of the official allopaths).
However, these homoeopathic experiments have not been with-
out their influence on the progress of Homoeopathy in Vienna;
and we believe they mainly contributed to induce the govern-
ment to repeal the laws that had been passed against Home-
opathy in Austria, and are partly the cause of the rapid spread of
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
463
our system in Vienna, and of the favour now shown to our
practice by the governing bodies of that city.
Attomyr thus speaks of him: Homoeopathy has lost in the be-
ginning of this year one of its most active practitioners, who out
of his medical career of 66 years had devoted to it 49 years ex-
clusively and with enthusiastic zeal. Long before this a monu-
ment ought to have been erected in this journal to this worthy;
I undertake it yet before the close of the year.
Staff-surgeon Dr. Matthias Marenzeller was born of poor
parents in Pettau, Styria, February 15th, 1765. After complet-
ing his gymnasial studies in Marburg and his philosophic studies
at Gratz, he went to Vienna to study medicine. Marenzeller
must have been an excellent student as he lectured even before
his graduation in the general hospital, while he was only 20
years old, as Instructor (Privatdocent) on Anatomy and Surgical
Operations. As the Josephs Academy was being founded just
about this time, Marenzeller determined to pass through its
academic course, and at its conclusion, on the 15th of. August,
1788, he was granted his diploma as Doctor. In the same year
he was appointed regimental surgeon. As such he went through
the war with Turkey, and was appointed in 1813, field officer in
charge of the Italian hospitals, after having been married the
year before to Miss Francisca Lechky.
Five years after the appearance of the Organon, in the
year 1815, Marenzeller began his study of Homœopathy, his
restless medical skepticism having driven him from one medical
system to the other. He was the first man in the Austrian States
who professed the doctrine of Hahnemann. He who knows the
position of the Austrian field-surgeons at that time will ac-
knowledge that it required unusual courage to make such a pro-
fession. Besides this, in 1815 there had not been as yet anything
published but the Organon, the Fragmenta de virib. med. p., and
a single volume of the Materia Medica Pura. With the aid of
these three volumes Marenzeller began to make experiments. A
physician must find his curative method very wretched, if it
can be surrendered to take up an embryonal method of cure, the
whole library of which consists of three books-Chorion, Allantois,
Amuion. It is not a small compliment to the acumen of
Marenzeller, that he could see from even this wretched cradle of
homoeopathic literature that it contained the germ of a great
464
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
truth, a truth which, as he lived to see and feel, should enkindle
the whole medical world even to fury and should shake its reign
of thousands of years even to its foundations; a truth for the
acknowledgment of which no physician in the Austrian states
has done more than Marenzeller. With 32 homoeopathic
remedies only imperfectly proved as yet, Staff-surgeon Maren-
zeller gained such successful results within a year in Prague,
whither he had been transferred in 1816, that his name and his
strange method of healing had become known in a large circle,
by the one party raised to heaven, by the other dragged down
into the dust.
In the course of the next Decennium, several physicians of
Austria, especially in Vienna, had imitated his example:
Lichtenfels, regimental surgeon Mueller, Loewe, Vrecha, A.
Schmidt, Menz, Schaeffer, Veith and others studied Homoeopathy
with enthusiasm, and practiced it with great success, in spite of
all the persecution of the medical faculty, the Josephs Academy
and the police, which were especially able to interfere on account
of their dispensing their own medicine. That the success of
Marenzeller and of the homoeopathic physicians then in Vienna.
must have caused an excitement may be concluded from this,
that in 1828, by command of the Emperor, an experiment was
ordered to be made at the Josephs Academy. It had been in-
tended, indeed, to make two trials. By the first trial, which was
appointed to be made for 60 days, it should only be found out
whether Homoeopathy could accomplish anything at all. By
a second series of experiments the extent and importance of its
performance should be determined. But the second experiment
was never made, and even the first was terminated 20 days
earlier than the time first set, owing to the orders of the higher
authorities.
Staff surgeon Marenzeller had been ordered from Prague to
Vienna on account of these experiments. One might suppose
that Marenzeller felt very ill at ease, and that any one who would
undertake such a ticklish business would have to have “Robur
et aes triplex circa pectus." Nevertheless, I can assure the reader
that he undertook these experiments with joy and full confidence;
for when I spoke with him about the matter, several years later,
he answered laughing: "I would even have undertaken the
contest, and would have felt confident of the result, if they had
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
465
""
made the condition that I should treat all my patients with
nothing but sugar of milk; for I had long ago become convinced
that much more favorable results would be obtained by not
giving the patient any treatment than by treating them allo-
pathically; this I had become convinced of as early as the war
with Turkey. Nevertheless, even with this conviction, it was
not an easy matter to defend a curative method in a medical
college, which differed in every direction, even down to the soup
to be supplied to the patients, from this method, while the con-
flict should decide that either the new system should be dis-
credited or the old system annihilated. To have carried on this
conflict under circumstances which in part were very unfavor-
able to a victorious issue and to the glory of the new method,
was a matter for which our deceased friend deserves all honor
and we all owe him thanks; for the manifestly thereby opened
the way for Homoeopathy in he Austrian states.
((
Marenzeller during these experiments cured nine inflammatory
diseases of the severer grade with his remedies, simply after
Prof. Zang had given the worst prognosis unless blood-letting
should be resorted to; when they were, nevertheless, cured
Zang would always exclaim: How much can nature ac-
complish!" The patients were in every way prepossessed against
the homoeopathic treatment, so that one pneumonia patient,
frightened by these malevolent insinuations, was about to kill
himself; according to the demand of Marenzeller, all physicians
who were not officially connected with the experiments were
excluded. When finally Marenzeller had lost only one patient
out of 43, the authorities suddenly found out that these experi-
ments amounted to playing with men's lives, and the homœo-
pathic clinic was suddenly and abruptly closed. Of the twelve
professors of the academy, who had now to give their judgment
as to these experiments, Prof. Zimmermann declared in favor of
Homœopathy, Zang declared himself decidedly opposed to it,
and the others remained neutral. But Marenzeller laughed,
well satisfied, for he knew well why the experiments had been
stopped. As to the judgment of the Vienna public concerning
these experiments, it suffices to say that from this time on
Marenzeller's office in Kærnthnerstrasse was full of patients
from early morning till late in the evening, and that Marenzeller
466
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
had the most extensive practice in Vienna, and had literally no
time left him for his meals.
From this time on Marenzeller remained in Vienna and was
pensioned at his own request. Although the prohibition of
Homœopathy issued in 1818 was not yet repealed, Archduke
Johann appointed him his physician in ordinary, and most of
Marenzeller's patients belonged to the first houses in Vienna.
His practice was so extensive that he every day tired out four
horses. After he had driven about, making calls from 7 A. M.
to 3 P. M., when he came home he would find the rooms full of
patients. With these he would spend several hours, then at 5
P. M. he would take a hurried dinner* and would again drive
out to visit patients. Late in the evening when he would return
home at 9 or 9:30, he would again find patients waiting for him;
and thus he went on day after day for fully twenty five years,
till he had reached a good old age. During his last years his
son aided him as his assistant.
Marenzeller died January 6th, 1854, in the 89th year of his
life. A year before his death he had to give up his practice, be-
cause the most vivid visions tormented his spirit and in the last
weeks of his life, through their ever increasing frequency and
duration, they exhausted him so much that he would swoon
away. To these were added considerable ulcerations on his back
and along his spine, which became gangrenous and hastened his
heath.
In the last year of his life Marenzeller applied for a patent of
nobility in Austria. His request was only granted when he was
already dead, and it is reported that by the grace of the
Emperor this distinction is to be transferred to the children of
Marenzeller.
Marenzeller was tall and slender of figure, with strongly
marked features and hasty in his movements; he was never seen
walking slowly; in going up stairs, he would mostly take two
steps at a time, even when he was quite old. His health and his
body could endure much, and not often has a man who con-
tinually underwent such hardships almost reached his 90th
year. His manner of living was always sober and simple. He
usually ate only once a day and would drive out without a
* During one such hasty dinner the poor man swallowed a chicken bone
which kept him in anguish for 36 hours.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
467
"}
breakfast to see his patients at 7 o'clock, summer and winter.
He never drank coffee or wine, very seldom a little beer, but all
the more water. Of this he would drink in the morning hours
3-4 bottles "to dilute his bile.' In all seasons of the year he
would rise at 5:30 A. M. He knew the names of very few of his
patients, but every patient had a number and at his next visit
he would present himself with his number; most of his letters to
his patients were headed with a number instead of a name. His
hostility to Allopathy and its representatives he exhibited openly
at every occasion. In his ante-room there were hung pictures
which ridiculed Allopathy, and especially the evacuative method.
He never visited parties or theaters; card-playing he hated.
Even to his family he could not devote an hour a day, and he
had often to think a while before he could remember the names
of his grandchildren. As a physician Marenzeller had rare
success, and his patients had an immovable confidence in his
practical tact. Although friendly and kindly in his intercourse,
he would not stand much on ceremony even with the noblest
patients. He had a stupendous memory, which was a great
advantage in his study of the materia medica. In many respects
Marenzeller was an original character. In conversation he was
very rhapsodical; he would jump from one subject to the other,
and would be very apt after several days to take up a conversa-
tion where he had left off. His favorite authors were Jean Paul
and Lavater. In Jean Paul's works he everywhere suspected a
masked cynicalness, and asserted that J. Paul fooled the whole
world. Marenzeller was too much a man of activity to find time
for literary work; nevertheless among the manuscripts he left
behind him there are also writings of a practical nature; as also
his synopsis of constitutions, which is well known to the physi-
cians of Vienna. We hope that the son of Dr. Marenzeller, our
colleague, Dr. Adolph Marenzeller, may publish what is most
important of this posthumous treasure.
The oldest Homœopaths of Austria will think of Marenzeller
with love and sadness, for he ever was to them in those troublous
times of medical inquisition a faithful friend and colleague.
The younger colleagues will remember for a long time to come
the memorable challenge which he readily accepted and carried
through victoriously in the very camp of his enemies to serve
Homœopathy and its adherents; while thousands of patients,
CA
468
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
who owe to him their health and life, will lovingly bless his
memory. (World's Conv. 2., 199-235. Brit. Journal Hom., vol.
12, p. 320; Kleinert, pp. 109, 142, 165, 260; All. hom. Zeit., vol.
47, p. 96; vol. 49, p. 54; Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 244, 256, 277, etc.;
vol. 2, p. 243, etc.)
DES MARTHES. The name appears on the list by Dr.
Quin, of 1834, at which time he was practicing Homoeopathy in
Bordeaux.
MARTINEZ.
Introduced Homœopathy into Salzburg,
Austria, in 1830. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 204.)
MASSOL. It is said that Dr. Massol, a Frenchman with an
Englishman's character, was the fourth to practice Homœopathy
in England. He eventually returned to France. Rapou says
that Massol was one of the assistants in the hospital founded by
Mr. Leaf, in Hanover Square. It is not likely that he was in
practice in London in 1834, as his name is not given in the list
by Dr. Quin of that year. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 193;
Rapou, vol. 1, p. 77; World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 107.)
MATTERSDORF. In 1832 this physician was practicing
Homœopathy in Frankenstein, near Glatz, in Silesia. Both the
Zeitung list of 1832 and the Quin list of 1834 locate him at that
place.
MATLACK, CHARLES F. Dr. Matlack graduated from
the University of Pennsylvania in 1820. In an autograph letter
he writes: I believe I was the first American physician in
chronological order who practiced in Philadelphia according to
the homoeopathic method. I employed it, by way of experiment
as early as the winter of 1832-33. He practiced in Philadel-
delphia for many years and in 1851 located in Germantown. He
was a close student and a successful practitioner of the Hahne-
mannian type. He did much for Homœopathy by curing
difficult chronic diseases. He died in 1874. Dr. McManus, of
Baltimore says that he was directed to Dr. Matlack as a gentle-
man and a scholar. That he visited him and told him that he
wished to investigate Homœopathy. Matlack satisfactorily
answered all of his questions, advised him to study the subject,
to learn German and told him that he would never regret the
change. Matlack was of the Hering coterie and in 1833 trans-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
469
lated into English Hering's masterly pamphlet—A Concise View
of the Rise and Progress of Homœopathic Medicine. (World's
Conv., vol. 2, pp. 489, 713.)
MAURO, GIUSEPPE. Dr. Mauro was a very distinguished
pioneer of Homoeopathy in Italy. He sent his contribution to
the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829; his name appears in the
Zeitung list of practitioners of Homœopathy in 1832, and Quin
also mentions his name in his directory of 1834.
Mauro was
converted by Dr. Necker as early as 1822 or 1823.
at that time a practitioner of Naples.
He was
Dadea says: Dr. Giuseppe Mauro, whom Romani calls the
virtuous, having reached his 64th year, and passed 36 years in
the practice of Allopathy, in order the better to learn the new
doctrine, and to master the original works of Hahnemann and
his disciples, applied himself with youthful ardor and a diligence
unique at so great an age to the difficult study of the German
language. He soon became conversant with this branch of
scientific literature, and turned his great and precious acquisi-
tions to the account, not only of his large number of patients,
but also of his colleagues far and near, with a generosity and
disinterestedness which have hardly been imitated in Italy by the
followers of Hahnemann.
He translated several works, which would have been in those
days, and to not a few would be to-day, an inestimable treasure
if they had ever been published. Of these unpublished transla-
tions he gave copies in his own handwriting to such persons as
he had initiated into the new doctrine, or who showed a desire
to study it; an immense and almost inconceivable labor, for there
were seventeen octavo volumes of more than a hundred pages
each, written by his own hand in the hours and minutes which
the old man could steal from his large practice.
He took part also in the translation of Hahnemann's treatise
on chronic diseases by Dr: Belluomini ; and to him exclusively
belongs the translation of the additions by Hartlaub and Trinks,
and the pathogenesis of Alumina from Stapf's Archives, by
which this Italian edition is made much richer than the French.
The homeopathic periodicals, too, had in Mauro an untiring
contributor; and the student often meets with his prcductions
470
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in the Effemeridi and in the Homeopathic Annals of Sicily, as
well as in the German journals.
Mauro's translations do not always reflect the exact thought
of the German author, and his diction, far from being always
pure and correct, is often contaminated by words and phrases
hardly tolerable in familiar conversation. But these blemishes
are more than excusable in an honest and industrious veteran,
who, in his haste to reach the distant goal before him, does not
take care to preserve that decorum and nicety which, at an
earlier age and with greater leisure, he would not have
neglected.
In 1829 and 1830 he was called to Rome, at Hahnemann's
suggestion, to prescribe for a foreign lady,* and by curing her
and many others of all classes of society he gained for himself
and Homœopathy very great repute in the Eternal City. Some
of his remarkable cures deserve especial mention, among them
that of an enormous hypertrophy of the heart, with great bulg-
ing of the ribs and sternum, this cure was effected with Spigelia
30th.
-
At Rome he confirmed in the faith of the new doctrine Dr.
Innocenzo Liuzzi, a fellow-countryman resident of Rome, who
had been converted in 1821 and timidly practiced Homoeopathy
since that year, and he left to Liuzzi the completion of the cures
he had set in progress.
Returning to Rome early in March, 1830, he converted to
Homœopathy the district physician of Velletri, who, not being
able from advanced age to undertake the ardous study and la-
borious practice of the new doctrine, instilled its first principles
into the mind of his son, Dr. Settimio Centamori, whom we
shall presently meet among the most distinguished practitioners
of Rome and of Italy.
He subsequently returned to his native city, not, however, to
enjoy there the repose to which his age and labors entitled him,
but to continue with rare modesty the propagation of Homœopa-
thy, which to him was a necessity. He took an increasing in-
terest in the Homeopathic Annals of Sicily, edited by Dr. De
Blasi, to which he contributed translations from the German,
useful compilations and very accurate clinical records; and in
1843, when more than eighty years old, we find him teaching in
* The Countess of Ingenheim, sister-in-law of the King of Prussia.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
471
the Homœopathic Dispensary of Palermo. Years were at last
more mighty than his iron will, and he retired to his adopted
country, Naples, where he died, almost a hundred years old, in
1857. He was on friendly terms with the most celebrated
Homœopaths of his day, and enjoyed the esteem of Hahnemann,
with whom he corresponded, and six of whose letters he care-
fully preserved. Three of these, written from Cöthen under
dates of March 16th, February 7th, and September 4th, 1829,
were published in the first volume of the Neapolitan journal,
L' Hannemanno, pages 126, 158, 223. I do not know that the
others have seen the light. All are now in the possession of
and too zealously guarded by Dr. Rubini.
In the letter of February 7th we find the following curt sen-
tences: In my opinion, I did not mention it to the marchioness
but I now say to you her disease is to be regarded rather as an
engorgement of the liver than of the uterus; but this makes no
difference in the treatment, since the malady results from psora.
Human beings free from a psoric taint are rare. (World's
Conv., vol. 2, 1072. Rapou, vol. I, 120, 133, etc.)
* The unpublished works translated and compiled by Mauro, and of
which Dr. Rocco Rubini possesses a copy, are the following. I am indebted
for this notice to Dr. Thomasso Cigliano :
1. Chronic Diseases, their Nature and Homoeopathic Treatment; by S.
Hahnemann. Translation. 6 vols., octavo. 1829.
2. Collection of Drug-provings. Published by a Society of Homoeopathic
Physicians, in the Archives of the Art of Healing. I vol., octavo, 364
pages. 1829.
3. Collection of Symptoms, printed in capitals in Hahnemann's Materia
Medica, 2d edition, and in the Homoeopathic Archives; and of symptoms,
confirmed by clinical experience in Leipsic. I vol., octavo, 384 pages. 1829.
4. Systematic Alphabetical Index, to facilitate the difficult practice of
Homœopathy. Compiled by Dr. Mauro. 2 vols., octavo, 300 pages each.
Naples. 1829.
5. Homœopathic Pharmacology, compiled from various authors. Trans-
lation. 3 vols., octavo, 138 pages each. 1832.
6. Bönninghausen: Intermittent Fevers; and Table of the Characteris-
tics of all the Remedies. Gross: Essay on the Puerperal State and the
Treatment of the Newborn. Translation. I vol., octavo, 175 pages. Na-
ples. 1834.
7. Homœopathic Observations by Dr. Necker, and Cures. Published in
Stapf's Archives. I vol., octavo, 92 pages.
8. On Dr. Theophilus Rau's Method of Homœopathic Practice, Transla-
tion.
472
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
MAYER, CARL VON. Was a contributer to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829. He was then practicing Homœopathy at
Lindenthal, Hungary. The name appears both on the Zeitung
and Quin lists.
MAYSGINTER. The Zeitung list of 1832 and the Quin list
of 1834 locate this man at Romredo in the Tyrol.
VAN MEERBUR. One of the early homoeopathists of
Belgium. A founder of the Belgian Homœopathic Society in
1837. (World's Conv., vol. 2, 308.)
MEIERHOFF. The Quin list of 1834 represents him as prac-
ticing Homœopathy at Bremen.
MEIER. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 Meier was
practicing Homœopathy in Schneeburg in 1832. Quin mentions
him as Medical Inspector in Schneeburg.
MENZ. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at Graetz
in Styria. In 1824 he removed to Vienna. While there he
cured, about 1825, Prof. S. Veith, the veterinarian, of a cardialgia
of many years standing. with Ignatia, after the best allopathic
authorities had failed to cure him. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p.
200.)
MESSERSCHMIDT. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was located at Naumburg in
Upper Saxony. The Zeitung and Quin lists both place him at
Naumburg. Rapou tells us that Messerschmidt had grown old
in the allopathic practice, and had acquired a great reputation,
and had been one of our most ardent adversaries, had submitted
to the evidence of facts and published in the Journal der
Praktischen Heilkunst for Jan., 1836, "A History of Homœo-
pathic Treatment." He was indifferent to the reproaches of
those who pretended that they ought not at the same time em-
ploy both methods. He continued the rest of his days to give
his patients the benefit of both, using the homeopathic when
the allopathic would not succeed. Again, Rapou: At Naumburg
lives, since 1832, Dr. Messerschmidt, who practiced the new
method. The wise sayings of Hufeland attracted him to its
study and since that time he is among its partisans. He does
not renounce the employment of rational proceedings which he
finds useful in some cases. He is an official physician, a man
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
473
of age, grave, of solid reputation. His conversion to Homo-
opathy exercised a great influence upon the opinion of the phy-
sicians of his country in regard to the homoeopathic school.
Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 240, 403. Ameke, p. 194.)
MILCENT, ALPHONSE. Leipzig, Oct. 17, 1873. Dr.
Alph. Milcent, Editor of the Art Medical, is dead. Dr. Milcent
practiced in Paris, where he was much esteemed for his brilliant
intellect and great accomplishments. His father had been a
military captain. A eulogy by Dr. Pitet may be found in the
Bibl. Homœopathique. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 87, p. 136. Bibl.
Hom., vol. 5, p. 450. El. Crit. Medico., vol. 14, p. 576.)
MOLIN, JEAN JACQUES, (Pere.) Quin in his list of
homœopathic practitioners of 1834 gives the name of Molin, at
which time he was practicing at Luxeuil.
The British Journal for January, 1849, says: Homœopathy has
lost one of its most worthy representatives. Dr. Molin, presi-
dent of the Society of Homoeopathic Medicine, was carried off
on the 3d of September last, by acute cancer of the mouth, in
the 51st year of his age. This terrible malady, against which,
with very rare exceptions, science is still impotent, had several
times alarmed our colleague, and especially during the latter
months of last year. Too expert a practitioner to be deceived
respecting the serious nature of the symptoms he experienced,
Dr. Molin made his diagnosis with the tranquility and resigna-
tion of a man deeply imbued with religion, but also with the
most unshaken faith in the remedies of the new system. And
in truth the first attack was subdued, and for some months his
health improved. But this was only temporary. In May a
suspicious tumor appeared on the sides of the inferior maxillary,
and after an exploring incision enormous vegetations appeared
and excessive suppuration was established. The cancerous
diathesis and the want of nourishment, which was prevented by
the mechanical obstacle presented by the carcinomatous ex-
crescences, soon exhausted his strength, paralyzed all attempts.
at reaction, and precipitated the fatal catastrophe. Dr. Molin
presided at the society for the last time on the 27th of April
Jean Jacques Molin, born at Annecy (Savoy), the 13th of
June, 1797, studied at the Lyceum at Grenoble. At 16 he be-
came a volunteer under the command of his father, and made
474
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
the campaigns of 1813 and 1814; having been wounded in battle
he was appointed sub-lieutenant. On the return of the Bourbons-
he was put on half pay. During the hundred days he joined the
sacred battalion, made the campaign of 1815, and was appointed
lieutenant. When the Bourbons again returned he left the
army and chose the medical profession. Accepted Officier de
Sante at the Parisian Academy, he practiced under that title
until 1829, when he took his degree of M. D. at the Faculty of
Strasburg, after an inaugural dissertation on intermittent
fevers. Appointed medical inspector of the thermal springs of
Luxeuil (Haute Saone) on the 21st of October, 1831, he occupied
that post until 1836, when he resigned in order to practice
homoeopathically in Paris. During his inspectorship he pub-
lished a work on the Springs in reference to their chemical and
therapeutical properties, and in consequence of this work he
was elected (March 30, 1833.) corresponding member of the
Society of Physical Sciences, Chemistry and Agricultural Arts
of Paris, and afterwards, on the 22d of August, 1833, correspond-
ing member of the Society of Sciences, Agriculture, and Arts of
the department of the Lower Rhine, which held its meetings in
Strasburg. Since 1830 he studied and practiced Homoeopathy.
He was elected member of the Societé Homœopathique Galli-
cane, assembled at Lyons in 1832. During his stay at Luxeuil
he made numerous converts in the neighborhood and spread the
knowledge of Homoeopathy especially at Besançon. He came
to Paris in 1836, to follow the practice of Hahnemann, thereby
abandoning the brilliant position he had raised himself to.
During 1840 he published the Journal de la doctrine Hahne-
mannianne, two vols. On December 11, 1841, he was elected
member of the Spanish Medical Institute; on November 18, 1847,
member of the Brazilian Homœopathic Medical Academy. He
was twice elected secretary of the Society of Homœopathic
Medicine, and twice president. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 7, p. 130.
Bull. de la soc. de med. Hom. Sept., 1848. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 42,
357, 412. Quan. Hom. Jour. Atkins' Hom. Directory, 1855, p.
213.)
MONNET. One of the pioneers of Homoeopathy, located at
Lyons. His name is on the Quin list of 1834.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
475
DE MOOR, PIERRE-JOSEPH. Born at Alost on the 19th
of October, 1787, imbued perhaps with the revolutionary spirit
of that epoch of renewal, De Moor was brought up in an atmos-
phere of agitation. He early devoted himself to his studies,
and at the end of a competitive examination he entered, still
quite young, as a boarding-pupil in the civic hospital at Biloque
in Ghent.
He passed brilliant examinations, obtained in the year 1807
the prizes in anatomy, physiology, medicine and surgery, in
1808 the prizes in anatomy, physiology and medicine, and was
proclaimed in the same year laureate at the competition in
surgery.
On the 19th of February, 1815, the administrative commission
of the civic hospitals of Alost created for his benefit the position
of assistant surgeon of the hospital, and in the year 1825, at the
death of the incumbent, Dr. Roucel, the learned author of the
"Flora of the North of France," his assistant took his place.
In 1817 De Moor was nominated with his colleague, Vander
Belen, a member of the Committee on Vaccination. Having a
spirit accessible to all new discoveries, he contributed by his
authority to propagate and cause to be accepted in his native
town the immense benefit which Jenner had bestowed on man-
kind.
Ten years afterward, having been a member of the medical
commission ever since its formation, De Moor introduced himself
to a very elementary knowledge of homoeopathic medicine by
the reading of the domestic and foreign medical journals. He
saw new spheres opening to his spirit. Although his reputation
as an allopath was firmly established, and though his practice
was large and extended, he did not hesitate to return to his
studies by applying himself with ardor to meditate on the vast
labors of Hahnemann and the leading disciples of his school. It
was only after two years of assiduous labor that he ventured to
make his application of the homoeopathic method.
This was in the year 1829. The first attempts of this learned
man astounded him through their results, and gave him the con-
viction that only from this moment he entered on a rational view.
In the year 1832, when the first invasion of the epidemy of
cholera broke out, De Moor had made sufficient experiences in
other diseases to have entire confidence in the homoeopathic
+
476
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
treatment of cholera. Charged by the commercial administra-
tion with the direction of the infirmary specially devoted to
cholera, he treated all his patients according to the new method,
and he so much distinguished himself by his zeal, his devotion,
his disinterestedness, and particularly by his brilliant success,
that the Communal Council resolved by vote that he was a
benefactor of his fellow-citizens, and besides charged the burgo-
master to report to the Government as to the distinguished
manner in which the medical director of the infirmary had
acquitted himself of his difficult task.
But the Organist opinions of De Moor were no secret to any
one, and it was due to this circumstance, that he did not receive
at this time the decoration of the order of Leopold, solicited for
him by the communal magistracy.
From that time, De Moor formally renounced the ancient
allopathic practice, and devoted himself exclusively to the prac-
tice of Homœopathy, which, in his opinion, had conclusively
proved its superiority in the treatment of cholera.
He, therefore, established a homoeopathic pharmacy with the
intelligent and devoted assistance of the pharmacist Moons; this
was the first establishment of the kind opened in Belgium.
The gauntlet was thus thrown down to the ancient method
which De Moor repudiated publicly, and then there broke out a
desperate conflict between him and the allopaths of Alost and of
its district.
But De Moor, luckily, was cut out for conflicts. He was a
man endowed with a rare energy and with an incomparable firm-
ness of character. Armed with strong convictions, founded on
a profound and extended knowledge, possessing a vast erudition
and great practical ability, and being, finally, a man of consum-
mate experience, he boldly bared his head to the storm. He
remained unshakably true to his opinions, and did not allow
himself to be cast down, either by injustice, or by ingratitude,
thus recalling the words of Horace: "Impavidum ferient ruinea."
The mischievous persecutions of all kinds raised up against
him were unspeakable. Being at the same time a liberal,
a learned man and a homoeopath, he saw himself attacked
with an unheard of violence at all points of the compass,
and so powerful were these attacks that they called forth
the following publication, which emanated from an administra-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
477
tion that thereby ignored the service which the homoeopath and
Homœopathy had rendered to the inhabitants of the town dur-
ing the epidemic of cholera.
ALOST the 18th of October, 1837.
Administration of the town of Alost, No. 5972.
Object: Board of Public Health.
GENTLEMEN:-According to the reports that have come to us,
Dr. De Moor treats the sick under your care homoeopathically.
We hasten to inform you of this abuse, so that you may at once
take measures to put an end to it. While these statements
appear certain, it also appears that Dr. De Moor allows himself
to practice medicine outside of the circle which is allotted to
him.
As the oversight of this branch of the service belongs to us,
we invite you, gentlemen, to exercise in this regard as far as your
establishment is concerned, the strictest surveillance, and to re-
port to us every deviation he may allow himself.
THE COLLEGE OF THE BURGOMASTER AND THE Aldermen.
VAN DER Noot.
Secretary,
D'HUYGHELÆRE.
To the president and members of the commission of the civic
hospitals of Alost.
The administration of civic hospitals made known this com-
munication to the Surgeon in charge of the hospital and naively
expressed to him "the hope that he would be pleased to conform
to its contents
,,
But no one who knew De Moor could hope to intimidate him
by such means. He took a firm hold of the public opinion in
this matter, and came forth triumphantly with flying colors after
a lively polemic that ensued in the journals of that date in
which the physicians of Brussels took part and notably as sup-
porters of the courageous champion of Homœopathy, the Drs.
Varlez and Dugniolle.
De Moor died on the 4th of December, 1845, far too soon for
science, as a consequence of a traumatic disease of the spinal
marrow. He has only left behind him manuscript notes, by
which his son and pupil, who is now the learned president of
478
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
the Belgian Society of Homoeopathic Medicine, has largely
profited.
Dr. Stockman in his history of Homœopathy in Belgium says:
Dr. De Moor was about the year 1829 at the head of the courageous
men who were rebuffed neither by the difficulties of the under-
taking nor by the railleries to which they were exposed. Dr.
De Moor was titular surgeon of the Civil Hospital at Alost.
(L'Hom. Militante, vol. 1, p. 30. World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 308.)
MORDWINOFF, NICHOLAS. Was a Russian Admiral
who later became a Count. He was greatly interested in
Homœopathy as early as 1829.
In the Memoirs of Admiral Mordwinoff, by his daughter,
published in 1873, we find the following: "In February, 1831,
my mother was taken sick. We had already treated ourselves
homœopathically, and this successful cure of a dangerous dis-
ease converted us completely. Soon afterwards my father pub-
lished his treatise, Pensées sur l' Efficacité des Remedies Homœo-
pathiques, dans le plus grande Atténuation. When the cholera
made its appearance at Moscow, we received letters from Swoff
and Korsakoff, written from Moscow and Saratoff, about the
successful results of Homœopathy in this disease. Their own
and their neighbors' peasants were treated by them; many pro-
prietors of estates followed their example, and the striking
results had such effect on the peasants that they everywhere
asked for help. When the cholera broke out in St. Petersburg,
my father procured full particulars of the disease, its various.
stages, the treatment and statistics of results, which with ex-
tracts from letters he forwarded to the Russian consul in
America. Ten years later my father received an honorary
diploma from the Homoeopathic Society (American), which
recognized him as one of the first introducers of Homoeopathy
into America."
Mordwinoff was a man of rare talents, energy and honesty,
with an insatiable interest for everything promising to further
the welfare of humanity. His efforts as a homœopathist were
directed to the procuring of physicians from Germany; to estab-
lishing schools in connection with hospitals; to bringing con-
stantly before the public the statistics of homoeopathic and
allopathic treatment; to translating homoeopathic works into
OF HOMEOPATHY.
479
Russian; to employing the new method, especially to counteract
syphilis among the people; and in endeavours to constitute
a homoeopathic society independent of the medical faculty.
A tabular statement prepared by Admiral Mordwinoff from re-
ports of homoeopathic treatment of cholera in 1830-31, in twelve
different parts of the Russian Empire, was published in the
Journal of the Ministry of the Interior of 1832, vol. vi, No. 1, p.
104. The totals are as follows: Treated 1,273, cured 1, 162, died
III, proportion of deaths 8.7 per cent. (World's Hom. Conv.,
vol. 2, pp. 256-9, 294.)
MOSSDORF, THEODORE.
Trinks says of him: The late
Dr. Theodore Mossdorf, Hahnemann's son-in-law, an honourable
and truth loving man, to whom we owe much information re-
specting the history of Homoeopathy and its founder, com-
municated to me the facts that Hahnemann began the proving
of the so-called anti-psorics in Coethen, that he treated the whole
psora theory as a secret, and that Dr. Mossdorf could never
ascertain on whom he (Hahnemann) had instituted these prov-
ings.
The name appears on both the Zeitung list of 1832 and that of
Quin of 1834, at which time he was in practice at Radeburg,
Saxony. (Kleinert, p. 140.)
(B. J. Hom., vol. 23, p. 449.) (See p. 87 of this book.)
MOSSBAUER. He was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. The name is also both on the Zeitung list of
1832 and that of Quin of 1834. He was practicing Homœopathy
at Berocz in Hungary.
MUHLENBEIN, GEORG AUGUST HEINRICH. Was a
very celebrated physician of the homoeopathic school, and one
like Hahnemann, who lived to celebrate the 50th Doctor-Jubilee.
His name appears as a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee
of 1829 and is also in the Zeitung list of 1832. The British
Journal contains the following: Homoeopathy has to deplore the
loss of one of her most eminent German champions, who was
among the foremost who perceived the truth and beauty of the
doctrines of Hahnemann, and contributed meritorious ways to
advance them.
George Augustus Henry Muhlenbein, Doctor of Medicine,
Privy Counsellor, Knight of the Order of Henry the Lion, etc.,
480
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
expired at Schöningen, in Brunswick, on the 8th of January of
last year, in the 81st year of his age. After completing his
medical studies and receiving his degree at Helmstadt, in 1789,.
he commenced practice in his native town of Königslutter, but.
soon afterwards removed to Brunswick, and was appointed
district physician in Schöningen, where he was greatly distin-
guished during a pestilential fever that invaded the town for his
zeal and humanity towards the poor under his care. About this
time he made Hahnemann's acquaintance, who then resided in
Königslutter, but he did not then embrace the novel doctriness of
the great Reformer. He was one of the first and most zealous in in-
troducing vaccination into his district, on which subject he wrote
several papers in Hufeland's journal and elsewhere. During a
very fatal epidemy of Scarlatina, which broke out on the
Prussian border, he displayed great activity, for which he was
rewarded by the Prussian Academy of Sciences with their silver
medal of merit, and by the Landgrave of Hesse Homburg with
the title of Hofrath. After this he established himself in Bruns-
wick, where he was nominated Assessor of the Board of Health,
and was subsequently appointed body physician to the reigning
Duke. In 1822 he became acquainted with Homoeopathy by
the perusal of Hahnemann's Materia Medica, and after having
practiced according to the doctrines of the prevailing school for
thirty-three years he embraced the homoeopathic system, as we
learn from his confession of faith in the sixth volume of the
Archiv. During his subsequent life he practiced Homoeopathy
with great success, and rendered important services in its propa-
gation. He may be justly termed the Apostle of Homœopathy
in the north of Germany. The 50th anniversary of the day
when he received his doctor's degree was celebrated with much
rejoicing by his friends and admirers. A medal was struck in
his honour, and a sum of money, subscribed by his friends for a
testimonial to him, was devoted, at his request, to the encourage-
ment of provings of medicines. He was one of the founders of
the Central Society of Homoeopathic Physicians, of which he
was once elected president. His energies and efforts in the
homœopathic cause continued unabated till a very advanced
period of life, and when he found it impossible to obtain the
repeal of the law against the dispensing of medicines by physi-
cians he established a homoeopathic laboratory in Brunswick.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
48I
Although his incessant engagement in active practice prevented
him writing much, he nevertheless succeeded in converting to
Homœopathy many allopathic physicians, who are now its
zealous adherents. In personal appearance he was stout, broad-
chested, lively in his movements, and manly and erect in his
gait. His forehead was expansive, his eye piercing, and he was
not deficient in eloquence. His whole appearance was dignified,
and inspired confidence, his manners towards his patients ex-
tremely kind and winning. He enjoyed good health until
within a few years of his death, when he fell into bad health,
probably from over-exertion, as he always seemed to forget his
advanced age and never took any care of himself nor spared
himself any labour. Homœopathy has lost in him an undaunted
defender of the truth, the sick a most successful practitioner,
and the poor a benevolent friend.
Dr. Rummel thus writes of him: Mühlenbein was Doctor of
Medicine, Privy Councillor, Knight of the Order of Henry the
Lion, and member of several learned societies. He died on Janu-
ary 8, 1845, at 3 A. M., in Schoeningen, in the Duchy of Bruns-
wick, in the 81st year of his life. In him Homœopathy loses
one of its oldest veterans and one of its most faithful champions
ever since the year 1822.
He was born on the 15th of October, 1764, at Koenigslutter in
Brunswick, where his father was a ducal steward, and Mühlen-
bein received his first instruction through a tutor, afterwards in
the public school there: but his further instruction in the
ancient languages he received at Holzminden. In the year 1784
he entered the university of Helmstædt, where he especially
profited from the lectures of the well-known royal councillor,
Beireis, and the Counselor of Mines, von Crell, while studying
medicine and chemistry. In order that he might make special
studies in anatomy, he went for some time to Brunswick, but
returned to Helmstædt to obtain his degree. This he received
on the 2d of November, 1789, after defending his dissertation
"De Typho."
At first he for a short time, took up medical practice in his
native town. Then he turned to Nieuburg on the Saale; but
owing to defective medical supervision and insufficiency of the
pharmaceutical establishment there he remained only a short
time, and then settled in Brunswick, where he was appointed as
482
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
physician for the poor. Soon afterwards the resident physician
at Schoeningen died of putrid fever which was raging there
as an epidemy, and Mühlenbein received from the Duke of
Brunswick the honorable but dangerous commission of support-
ing with his counsel and aid the inhabitants of Schoeningen thus
depraved of medical assistance. He came near being a victim
of his zeal and philanthropy, for also he was seized by the
malignant disease, and only after a long confinement his vigor-
ous constitution triumphed and he recovered. As a reward of
his services, he received the appointment of district physician in
Schoeningen, and later on, when he had declined a call to
Heiligenstadt, and the office of district physician in Blanken-
burg, to which he had a claim was otherwise filled, he received
a personal increase of salary. About this time he first made the
acquaintance with Hahnemann, who then was living in Koenig-
slutter, but difference of views and opinions then prevented a
closer friendly intimacy with the great reformer.*
He deserved a great credit for spreading vaccination** in his
district and in its neighborhood; he also published several
articles about it in the Braunschweigsche Magazin and in Hufe-
land's Journal. On this account, and in consequence of his self-
sacrificing, unselfish activity in the treatment of the epidemies
occuring in the Prussian districts near the border, especially of
a very malignant form of scarlatina, he received from the Royal
Prussian Academy of Sciences the great silver medal of merit,
and from the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg the appointment of
privy councillor. After the death of Dr. Caspari in Bunswick,
in answer to a call, he removed to that town, and his fellow-
citizens with much regret saw him leave them, accompanying
him with their blessings, as many owed to him their life and
their health.
When the Duchy of Brunswick was restored to its hereditary
prince, he was appointed assessor to the Supreme Sanitary
* The memory of one of the oldest, most zealous and warmest friends of
Homœopathy, a Mühlenbein, who so soon followed the great master,
could not be omitted from the Archiv. f. d. hom. Heilkunst. The monu-
ment erected to him by Rummel in the Allgem. Hom. Zeit. (vol. xxviii,
No. 2) is so worthy of him and so suitable that we find nothing in it that
w would see changed; we therefore do not hesitate to transfer it unaltered
to the Archiv.
** From 1800-1812 he vaccinated nearly 1200 children.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
483
College, and soon afterward he was appointed by Duke Friedrich
Wilhelm as court physician, and when the duke marched into
the War of Liberation he entrusted Dr. Mühlenbein with the
medical care of the two princes. In this position he labored for
the institution of gratuitous vaccination, for the appropriation of
a fund to salary the physicians entrusted therewith, and for the
institution of regular lists of vaccination. Even while an allo-
pathic physician, he enjoyed general confidence, and had an
extended practice, so that in the 33 years in which he practiced
allopathy he treated 75,300 patients.
In the year 1822 he became acquainted with Homœopathy by
reading the Materia Medica Pura; this he states himself in
Stapf's Archiv. f. hom. Heilk., vol. vi, No. 3. From this time
dated his conflicts with his colleagues and the medical authori-
ties, and he fared no better than other converts, being persecuted
by prejudice, self-interest, vengeance and stupidity in every
passable manner. His firm, passionate and easily excitable
character caused very annoying conflicts, so that at one time he
was condemned to disciplinary imprisonment on account of his
insulting the medical authorities; but the duke, who knew how
to value his merits, remitted the punishment.
He deserves great credit for his services in spreading Homo-
opathy. His fame as a successful physician was as well-
established as it was extensive, so that his medical practice ex-
tended over the whole of northern Germany, and he was even
consulted by patients from across the sea. In 17 years, up to his
jubilee year, he treated 27,078 patients homoeopathically, of
which number he only lost one out of 105½. His activity and
zeal were indefatigable; he assisted both the poor and the rich
with great unselfishness; his lucrative practice and private fortune
enabled him to do this to a greater extent than others.
His suc-
cess and example caused several physicians to follow his example
and pass over to Homœopathy, and heaided the new converts with
his advice and assistance. As his strength did not permit him
to answer all calls upon him, despite of his industry, he was in
strumental in causing Dr. Hartlaubsen to move to Brunswick,
and after his death, Dr. Fielitz. Thus he will ever stand honored
a's the great medium of the establishment and spread of Homo-
opathy in northern Germany. On this account great affection
and gratitude were shown to him even during his life-time. On
484
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
his birthday, October 15th, 1835, a society of ladies presented
him with an embroidered set of furniture, and a society of
gentlemen presented him with a large silver goblet. In the
year following, the Duke distinguished him by granting him the
golden cross of the Knights of Henry the Lion.
Thus honored, loved and celebrated, he approached the rare
festival of his 50 years jubilee as Doctor of Medicine, on Novem-
ber 2d, 1839. An association of friends and admirers, both
physicians and laymen, had been formed to properly celebrate
this day, and so they were enabled to hand him an essay
written by me, entitled "Review of the History of Homoeopathy
in the Last Decade," and a medal struck off in his honor, and
there still remained over of the sum collected the handsome sum of
400 thalers, which was handed to him at his jubilee as the first
contribution to a fund desired by Mühlenbein for the encour-
agement of provings of medicines. The Duke appointed him
on this day a Privy Councillor; the medical faculty of the
university of Goettingen presented him with a renewed diploma,
and our good friend Elvert brought him a laurel wreath from
his admirers in Hannover. Thus the sturdy old man celebrated
this rare day joyously and with honorable recognition in the
midst of his friends and admirers, attending on the same day a
meeting of the North-German Union of Homœopathic Physi-
cians, first in a scientific occupation, then at a joyous banquet.
In addition to his services to Homœopathy already recorded,
we wish to mention his labors for the worthy celebration of the
jubilee of Hahnemann, especially his munificent collection for
that purpose; in fact, he was never backward in furthering
everything good, and to elevate and glorify the new doctrine
which he recognized as the true one. He was one of the founders
of the Central Union, and for a long time a member of its Execu-
tive Committee and a trustee of its funds, and once in recogni-
tion of his merits he was elected director of the union. He
contributed as well to the formation of the North-German Union
of Homoeopathic Physicians, and was its president during the
first year.
Even when quite advanced in age he zealously and indus-
triously took upon himself the disagreeable task of proving
medicines, and for a long time he wished and endeavored to
gather a fund from the interest on which good provings might.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
485
be rewarded and encouraged. In this he was also successful, and
we shall communicate in our next number a report as to the
amount of the fund and the directions as to its use.
Dr. Mühlenbein was much troubled, like other homoeopathic
physicians, by the law forbidding them to dispense their own
medicines; and he had many a contest on this score with the
authorities and the opposing druggists and physicians. As he
did not succeed, in spite of all his efforts, in obtaining the liberty
of dispensing his own medicines, he took care to have established
a purely homoeopathic pharmacy in Brunswick, in which he was
nobly supported by his good nephew, the druggist Mueller in
Schoeningen.
Owing to his varied activities and his medical practice which
engrossed most of his time, he could not frequently appear as
author; nevertheless he furnished a number of solid articles for
the Archiv. f. hom. Heilk, and for the Allgem. Hom. Zeitung, and
at his jubilee he surprised his friends with an "Account of his.
medical activity at the close of his fifty years' practice;" in this
essay he treats of the difference between the success of his
allopathic and his homoeopathic practice, and endeavors to prove,
by figures, that the results of allopathic treatment can not be
compared in the least with those of Homœopathy. He had not,
indeed, sufficient official data at his command with respect to
allopathy, and had frequently to resort to conclusions drawn by
himself in order to prove what every homeopath sees demon-
strated every day.
Mühlenbein was of a vigorous build of body, tall and with
broad chest ; vivacious in his movements, with a gait of manly
firmness. He was a fine looking old man, with an open face,
steady eye, eloquent mouth; at times he was polished and mild,
then again passionate and hard, according as he was affected by
matters, but always open and loyal, a friend of truth and of the
persecuted; but he was not unfrequently carried away by his
vehemence, a fact which his friends readily pardoned, as his in-
tentions were always upright. His whole personality impressed
those he met with reverence and inspired confidence; his treat-
ment of his patients showed devotion to their welfare and won
all hearts, unless he were irritated by lack of observance of his
directions or by contradiction. Although unmarried, he under-
stood the art of forming a family circle around him through his
486
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
relations; but medicine in its new form remained his dearest
nursling, and even in advanced age he was truly indefatigable
as a physician and most exact in conducting his daily entries in
his journal.
To many of his patients he stood in an almost paternal rela-
tion, and treated those whom he had known from their child-
hood as if they were his children.
-
We may consider it as one of his characteristic traits, that he
never entered into an intimate friendship with Hahnemann,
whose creative genius he ardently loved and honored. The
characters of these two men were too diametrically opposite in
many points to attract each other, though they were similar to
each other in firmly maintaining what they had once seen to be
the truth.
Such a man could not, indeed, fail to have enemies, but even
these will readily acknowledge the sterling honesty of his con-
victions. even if they blame him for his vehemence and uncom-
promising decision of character.
His health was good, and he put it to trial in many hardships,
living at the same time in a simple and serene manner; only in
the latter end of his career he began to be sickly, and being un-
accustomed to paying any regard to himself, and forgetful of his
advancing age, by a continued strenuous activity he imposed too
much on his decreasing physical powers. Finally he withdrew
to his asylum in Schoeningen, which he had prepared for him-
self some time before, and lived more for himself and his studies;
still enjoying life, but with his vital force diminished, until
finally death relieved him from "those years in which we have
no pleasure," as the Bible so well describes old age. Once more,
as on the day of his jubilee, I can in all truthfulness say of him :
“O, man without fear and strong of will, you ministered as a
pure priest to a pure Divinity!" (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p. 251;
Kleinert, pp. 120, 129, 143, etc., Neue Archiv. f. d. hom. Heil-
kunst, vol. 22, pt. 2, p. 177; Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 28, p. 17;
Rapou, 2, p. 592. "Dem. Hochverehrten um die homopathische
verdienten Hochwohlgebornen Herrn G. A. H. Muhlenbein, etc.,
1839." (Biography in Jubilee pamphlet N. W. J. Hom., vol. 3, p.
186, 1851.) (From Archiv., vol. 22; Atkins Dirctomy, 1855.)
OF HOMEOPATHY.
487
MULLER, BENJAMIN. Was a contributor to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829. He was then in Leignitz in Silesia. His
name is on both the Zeitung and Quin lists.
MUELLER, JOSEPH. Dr. Jos. Mueller, one of the oldest
and stanchest priests of Homœopathy, has departed. The
number of those of its disciples that stood at its cradle is daily
becoming smaller. Soon even the last will sink into the grave
and a new generation will perhaps, when they see a sheet like
the present, think with emotions of thankfulness of those who
labored at the foundation stones as yet unhewn, while only their
more fortunate progeny were allowed to view the stately edifice
erected thereon. May these decendants cultivate with equal
love and self-sacrifice the doctrine handed down to them, and
may they never have a reason to say of themselves: Aetas
parentum, pejor avis, tulit nos nequiores, mox progeniem daturos
vitiosiorem."
(6
F. Jos. Mueller was born of poor parents on December 22d,
1773, in Altenburg near Reinan in the Grand Duchy of Baden;
he received his first instructions at Appenzell with the Benedic-
tine monks, over whom the uncle of Mueller was placed as
Abbott; this uncle must, however, have been a rough man, as
Mueller could never forget his harshness. His medical educa-
tion Mueller received in Vienna in the Josephs Academy, and
he graduated there as Doctor Chirurgiae under the chief army
surgeon, Reinl. Among the professors of Mueller were several
of the celebrities of the time as Adam Schmidt, Jos. Schmitt,
Zimmermann (later converted to Homœopathy), also Castelliz
and Zang. After his graduation, Zang in his rough way came.
to Mueller and said: You have graduated as Doctor in an
academy in which many an ass has received the same honor.
feel urged, to prevent your being mixed up with these fellows,
to give you a special testimonial, which may be of use to you in
your military career. This testimonial was found among
Mueller's papers and was couched in the following terms: This
document testifies that Dr. J. Mueller, surgeon, during his years
of study at the Josephs Academy, not only exhibited an ex-
emplary moral deportment, but also distinguished himself
through his geniality, industry, application and the abundance
of his knowledges in the healing art. Prof. Zang. Another
testimonial given him by Prof. Castelliz seems to show that
I
488
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Mueller was the first and most distinguished among his fellow
pupils, for this testimonial contains the following highly lauda-
tory passage: "Ut propter insignia scientiarum suarum specimina
tum ad lectos ægrotorum, turn in examinibus privatis, quarn
omnibus tribus rigorosis non mods singularem eminentiæ notam
verum stiam primum inter primos ac egregios condiscripulos sibi
vindicasset locum, fateor lubens."
So well educated a young physician could not fail to find
many occasions to distinguish himself in the French war, so
that he was decorated with two medals, with the royal Bavarian
sanitary silver medal and with the Austrian golden medal of
honor. The latter was given to Mueller as an acknowledgment
of the excellent manner in which he conducted the hospital in
Troyes, where he remained behind with his patients after the
retreat of the Austrian troops.
After his return from France, Mueller came to Bohemia where
he heard much talk of cures effected by Marenzeller, according
to an entirely new method of cure. Mueller sent to Prague for
books concerning Homœopathy, and was quite taken back when
he only received three books, i. e., the "Organon" and two
volumes of Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura." Thus
Mueller in 1817 began his homoeopathic studies, which he
prosecuted with love and perseverance till his death.
Soon after this Mueller came with his regiment to Vienna,
where he drew much attention to himself through his homoeo-
pathic cures, and was fully occupied, especially among the
higher classes. This brought Mueller much money, but also a
good deal of annoyance, for the police was frequently after him,
as it is always dreadfully afraid of everything new.
From Vienna Mueller came to Hungary, being not a little
troubled by the interdict on Homoeopathy that it had been pro
nounced in the meantime (1818), nevertheless, he was not
thereby deterred from continuing his homoeopathic experiments
in his hospital. Soon Mueller's name became known also in
Hungary to the physicians and patients, and several of the
oldest homœopathic physicians of Hungary owe to him their
first impulse to the study of Homœopathy. The district physi-
cian, Dr. Forgó, in Pesth, commenced about the year 1820 to
make experiments according to the directions of Hahnemann,
an undertaking at that time fraught with much danger for a
"(
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
489
public official, when, two years before, Homoeopathy had been
prohibited in the Austrian States. Forgó entered into cor-
respondence with Mueller and frequently consulted him about
his patients. The friendly relation thus arisen between them,
however, was near being turned into enmity by the following
case of disease: Forgó had a patient who suffered from chronic
constipation. The patient, when evacuating her parched hard
stool, had such violent pains in the rectum that she had to be
held by two persons, and assured them that she would sooner
have undergone parturition every time. Forgó gave her a strong
dose of Nux vom., and already on the next day the stool was
discharged without the usual difficulty, but the stool was diar-
rhoeic and combined with a colicky pain in the abdomen. Such
stools were discharged 3-4 times a day and the patient was over-
joyed. Forgó, quite delighted at the successful action of Nux
vom., one day came to a kins-woman of his patient, and heard
there that Mueller had remarked that this cure was not permanent,
because the stools were not normal, and the whole was merely a
primary effect of the over-strong dose of Nux vomica. Forgó, who
was violent and passionate, became very angry at this and wrote
Mueller an insulting letter which Mueller answered in a similar
fashion. The stools, in fact, ceased after sixteen days and the
former excruciating constipation returned. The patient then
consulted Mueller. He gave her Puls. 15, and this one dose so
restored the intestinal function that the lady from that day on
had only one normal stool without any attendant trouble.
Mueller often remembered this interesting case in later years
when he had to treat intestinal obstruction which would neither
yield to Nux nor to Pulsatilla. But the honest and upright
Forgó, when he heard of this cure, asked pardon of Mueller on
account of the insult given, and the former friendship was
restored and remained undisturbed till the death of Forgó.
The interdict against Homœopathy could be easily ignored or
circumvented by Mueller in his private practice, but this was
not so easy in the regimental hospital on account of the inspec-
tion by the staff-surgeons. During such inspections, Mueller
had to pass through numerous conflicts. In the beginning he
would help himself by putting a little flask of water colored
with some harmless vegetable juice by the side of every patient.
Since at these visitations of the hospitals more weight is usually
490
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
laid on everything else than on therapeutics, so for sheer re-
ports, proceedings, statistics of the patients and lists of conduct,
there was not enough time to inquire into the contents of these
colored water-bottles. In the year 1824 Staff-surgeon Braun
came to Dotis to inspect the hospital of Mueller. Braun took
the liberty of telling Mueller that he had heard that Mueller
treated all his patients with one and the same kind of drops, and
he threatened to institute a complaint against him. This was
too much for Mueller's patience. A violent scene followed.
Mueller explained to Braun the uniformity of his drops, and
while enumerating the leading tenets of Homoeopathy he drew
autithetically a very glaring silhouette of allopathy. The un-
expected result of this controversy was that Braun, who then was
72 years old, began the study of Homoeopathy and practiced the
same with affectionate zeal till his life terminated some 15 years
later.
When I had finished my course for medical practitioners in the
Josephs Academy, having heard Homoeopathy well abused all
the while, and having abused it myself, I was not a little afraid
when I heard that I was appointed as assistant-surgeon in a regi-
ment in which the noted homeopath Mueller was chief surgeon.
In quite a desperate state of mind I entered on my journey to
Mueller; but now I should be in a state of desperation if I had
not made this journey. Of such a nature are the notions of men
with respect to that which they call fortune! Mueller received
me pretty coldly, for he was a strict officer, much feared by those
under him. On the same day I visited the hospital with Mueller.
I had not then seen many hospitals, nevertheless, I noticed
many points at once by which Mueller's hospital differed from
those in Vienna. Here and there I saw very small powders
lying by the side of the patients, and these powders made me
quake. During the examination of the patients Mueller dictated
to me several prescriptions which I entered into the blank for
the examination of patients. After the termination of the visita-
tion, Mueller told me that the prescribed mixtures need not be
made, he would instead of them give me medicines which I
should give to the patients. After half an hour I got quite a
number of powders from Mueller's residence, opened several and
found one looking just like the other, while all strongly smelled
of alcohol. I shook my head, which I supposed to be a very
OF HOMEOPATHY.
491
wise one, and distributed the powders according to Mueller's
directions. In the course of several months I saw cases of
pneumonia, of Hungarian malarial fever, of bullular erysipelas
with delirium, chancre, etc., cured with these powders, and
scales fell from my eyes. I had to confess that Mueller's hospital
was at least as good as those of Venna. But this did not console
me, for a fact does not satisfy us unless we also understand the
reason why. I came to the idea that the alcohol effected the
cure, and liked to have suffered shipwreck on the cliff of a uni-
versal panacea. I was beginning to doubt and to be sorry that
I had chosen the study of medicine. I must have looked very
ill humored and sad during this state of mind, for Mueller told
me one day that I looked as if I was sick or in love.
I grew
frightened as if caught in an evil act, and confessed to him
frankly my mental torture. After this day, Mueller entered on
medical explications after every medical visit; I opposed him as
well as I knew how, but soon found out that I was no match to
Mueller's sharp dialectic. I now began to study with burning
zeal the homoeopathic writings, I experimented with medicines
on myself, commenced to treat patients homoeopathically, and to
look at the results in Mueller's hospitals with other eyes. Just
as I had become fully convinced, I received orders to return to
Vienna to enter on the higher medical course in the Josephs
Academy. Mueller advised me not to talk about Homoeopathy
in Vienna. The advice was good, but my youthful mind, glow-
ing with enthusiasm for my conviction acquired after so much
striving, did not follow it, as many of my readers may know. I
acknowledge this without feeling sorry for it. It caused me a
good deal of suffering, but I am contented and would act again
in the same way in a similar case. Thus I was introduced by
our deceased friend Mueller and by the aid of practice into
Homœopathy. Few homoeopathic physicians have been so
much favored on entering on their homoeopathic studies. Most
of them at first gave on their own responsibility with hesitation
and trembling Aconite in inflammation, and spent many a night
without sleep from anxiety, or dreamed of venesection during
their uneasy sleep. I was brought to my conviction without
such mental torture through Mueller's hospital, which contained
on an average 40 patients. My convictions were, therefore,
established more quickly and lastingly, and may thus have de-
492
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
veloped my determination, yea, obstinacy, in defending the
doctrines of Hahnemann.
Mueller's health had been very frail from his childhood.
While a child he suffered of rhachitis and his spine ever retained
a leaning to the right. In latter years Mueller suffered from a
very painful sciatica, from which he freed himself, as he sup-
posed, by tokay wine. Nine years ago, while playing cards in
my house, he had an apopletic stroke, from which he, however,
perfectly recovered a few days later. I was afraid the stroke
might return and entreated him to leave off wine, strong cigars
and coffee after dinner. This he did for a time, but soon he re-
turned to his old customs. The wine he especially claimed for
himself as the lac senum (old men's milk), but he always partook
of it in great moderation and mixed with water. In the begin-
ning of this year Mueller fell down in his room and broke his
upper arm; he himself did not know what had caused this fall,
for he said that he neither became dizzy nor did he perceive
any obstruction on the floor. The broken bone healed, and no
fever nor any ill symptoms about the broken place manifested
themselves, and yet his vital force continuaily diminished and
an obstinate hiccough appeared (Mueller called it the language
of death) and some sopor and a gentle sleep terminated his life
on the 10 of February, 1852, in the 79th year of his life.
Mueller was of a middle stature, his manners ever those of
the higher circles, to which in the last years his intercourse was
almost confined; in his person and his surroundingness there
was ever a sphere of neatness and cleanliness, even in his
advanced age. Strict probity was a predominant trait in his
character. In the choice of his friends he was particular and in
the defense of his views somewhat obstinate. There was besides
this a certain indolence in his character, which became annoy-
ing to himself in his advanced age and about which he oft
lamented; he perceived the ill consequences of it and yet he
could not overcome it. He disliked living in Pesth and in
Hungary as a whole, yet he lived there for thirty-two years, and
although he wrote to me every year that he would come over to
me to Pressburg yet he never did so owing to his indolence.
Mueller left behind him a considerable fortune, which would have
been much larger if he had not allowed it to lie idle for years,
-also from indolence.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
493
Homœopathy was the joy of his life and he reverenced Hahne-
mann as one of the few benefactors of the human race.
As a
physician he remained absolutely faithful to the first teachings
of Hahnemann, and he bitterly inveighed against the schism
that arose.
As a physician he had remarkable success and he
succeeded in cures which surprised himself, especially in the
first years of his thirty-five years of homoeopathic practice.
Many thousands will bless the memory of Mueller, but no one
with more love and gratitude than myself.
DR. ATTOMYR
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 44, p. 6. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 246-9.)
MURE, J. B. The editor of the British Journal in a review
of Dr. Mure's book gives the following account of this notable
man:
DOCTRINE DE L'ECOLE DE RIO DE JANEIRO ET PATHOGENESIE
BRESILIENNE. Paris, 1849.
This work is the production of Dr. Mure, the indefatigable
apostle of Homœopathy, of whom many of our readers may have
heard, though they may not be aware of the immense energy dis-
played by this zealous disciple of Hahnemann, in the propaga-
tion of the new system. We think it may not be uninteresting
to our readers to give a slight sketch of the labors of Dr. Mure,
as far as we are able from the documents to which we have
His whole career bears such an air of knight-errantry
and romance about it that it seems something like a fiction, but
we have every reason to believe that all the facts we are about
to relate are in the main true, though perhaps somewhat highly
colored by the zeal of the narrators.
access.
M. Mure was a French merchant, well known at Palermo, and
having fallen into extreme ill-health (phthisis pulmonalis is
said to have been his malady) he was given over by his allo-
pathic physicians. Apparently in the last stage of consumption
the "
Organon" of Hahnemann fell into his hands, which he
eagerly perused, and struck by the new light revealed in this
extraordinary work a ray of hope beamed upon him, and he
hastened away from Palermo to seek that relief from the hands
of the homoeopathists which he was unable to obtain from the
adherents of the old school. On his arrival at Lyons he placed
himself under the care of the venerable Dr. Count Des Guidi.
494
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Such was his miserable condition on leaving Sicily, his friends.
scarcely expected he would survive the fatigues of the sea
voyage. Their astonishment was great when they saw him
return in a few months in perfect health. All Palermo flocked
around him and begged he would give them information respect-
ing the system which had produced on him these marvellous
results.
He made some cautious experiments with homoeopathic
remedies, and with complete success. Several physicians of
Palermo were convinced by the proofs they saw of the efficacy
of Homœopathy, and set about studying it with diligence.
Mure was now resolved to consecrate the life that had been
saved by Homoeopathy, to its propagation, and, abandoning his
commercial pursuits, he went to Montpellier to study medicine.
and obtain the legal qualifications for practicing as a physician.
Having completed his studies and obtained his degree, he
began to devote himself to propagate Homoeopathy. Malta was
the first spot he chose for his operations. He arrived there in
1836. In the Grand Hall of the Knights of Provence, at
Valetta, he got up an exhibition of his cures; something, we
suppose, in the style of those formerly witnessed in this country,
though on a more extensive scale, but not on that account of
less questionable propriety, but Dr. Mure in his proselytizing
ardour was no stickler for professional etiquette. He succeeded
in making converts of some medical men there, particularly of
Drs. Fennich, Buona-via, and De Claude. The cholera having
broken out in the kingdom of Naples, he crossed over to Palermo
in 1837, and on the voyage wrote some papers on the progress
of Homœopathy and the homeopathic treatment of cholera,
with Hahnemann's instructions for the cure of that disease.
These he published on his arrival. The cholera not appearing
in Sicily, he went elsewhere to propagate the faith, but was
speedily recalled to Palermo by the invasion of the Pest in June,
1837; he did not arrive there, however, until the disease was
already in its decline, after having carried off near a quarter of
the population in forty days, Whilst most of the allopathic
physicians had fled from the town during these fatal days, two
of Mure's disciples, Drs. De Blasi and Bartoli, remained faithful
to their post, and were instrumental in rescuing a number of
persons from the grave. However, the Academy of Palermo,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
495
which had erased De Blasi's name from among its members on
account of his heretical opinions, refused to register the cases
treated by the homoeopathists, but the Government, appreciating
the excellence of their treatment, took care to spread a
knowledge of the method pursued by them among the parts of
the country still ravaged by the plague.
Our hero now set about translating a repertorium from the
German, for the use of the Silician physicians, and established
a pharmacy, where he made all the homoeopathic preparations
with his own hands. He here invented a machine for triturating
the medicines, and another for succussing the dilutions, of
which he has given us drawings in the Bibl. Hom. de Géneve,
and also in the work before us. His plan was to triturate every
substance, mineral, vegetable and animal, up to the third at-
tenuation, and with his succussion machine to give 300 shakes to
each dilution. He undertook to supply every medical man
gratuitously with all the homoeopathic preparations. Not being
able to obtain bottles in sufficient quantity, he established a
glass-blowing manufactory, himself instructing the workmen,
whereby he was enabled to supply with pocket pharmacies all
the medical men who applied to him, and who were by no means
few in number. During this time he translated, into Italian,
Jahr's Manual.
In the beginning of 1838 he opened a dispensary at Palermo,
and soon afterwards a second in the centre of the town on a
magnificent scale. In less than a year the number of patients
daily seen here amounted to upwards of 200, and above six
physicians were occupied in attending to them. Physicians,
students, lawyers, priests, literary men, flocked to this temple
of charity to hear from the patients themselves an account of
their astonishing cures, we are told; and thus this dispensary
became the centre of the propaganda for Sicily. The allopathic
physicians, our informant assures us, found themselves almost
deserted by their patients, the apothecaries begged to be allowed
to sell the homoeopathic medicines, and the wards of the great
hospital were almost forsaken. In some public hospitals
Homœopathy was adopted, viz., in the hospitals. of Morreale,
Mistretta, Pietra-perzia, and that of the brothers of San Giovanni
de Dio, their physicians having become converts to the new
system. In a very short time about thirty physicians declared
496
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
themselves favourable to the new doctrines, the principal of whom
were, Tranchina, De Blasi, De Bartoli, Morello, Tripi, Calandra,
Bandiera, the Marquis Inguagiato, Vasallo, Lipomi, Cinirella,
Aceto, Maglienti, Strina, Selvaggio, Perez, Evola, Bonelli,
Bataglia, Magri.
Under the editorship of De Blasi the Annali di la med.
Omeopatica, a periodical journal for the propagation of Homo-
opathy, was established.
A homœopathic society was formed, which in 1844 was form-
ally recognized by government and converted into "The Royal
Homœopathic Academy." Courses of lectures on Homœopathy
were delivered.
Having thus given the impulse to Homœopathy in Sicily, our
indefatigable colleague, desiring a new field for his beneficent
conquests, turned his eyes towards Paris, and thinking things
were not going on quick enough there to his liking he resolved
to stir up the energies of his dormant confrères.
Arrived in Paris in 1839, he immediately set about the foun-
dation of a Homoeopathic Institute, for the purpose of spreading
the system by practice, instruction and publications.
A dispensary was opened every day for the poor; courses of
lectures were announced, on clinical Homœopathy, by Dr.
Croserio on the theory and history of Homœopathy and on
materia medica, by Dr. Jahr. Two newspapers for the indoc-
trination of the public were set a-going-a daily one, the
Capitole, and a weekly one, the Nouveau Monde. A homœo-
pathic pharmacy was established, provided with all Dr. Mure's
ingenious apparatus. A library containing all the homoeopathic
works necessary for the student was formed. The opening of
this Institute on the 20th November, 1839, was rendered pecu-
liarly imposing by the presence of Hahnemann himself, and a
long oration was pronounced by Dr. Jahr, which is reported in
the Bibl. Hom. de Géneve for 1840, where also may be found
numerous particulars relative to the impulse given to Homo-
opathy in France by Dr. Mure, the opposition he encountered,
and the spirit with which he attacked his adversaries.
But this restless spirit yearned like Alexander for new worlds
to conquer; he desired to find some land where he might be the
first to break the ground, and to convey blessings hitherto un-
known to a race of men ignorant of the glorious doctrines of
OF HOMEOPATHY.
497
Hahnemann. He determined to cross the ocean and rear the
standard of Homoeopathy in the virgin soil of South America.
Accordingly he sailed for Rio de Janeiro, and arrived there in
1840. The traces of Homœopathy in the Brazilian empire were
but few before this time. In 1834 a Dr. Maya had published an
article against Homœopathy. In 1837 a M. Jahn had presented
a thesis on Homœopathy to the Faculty of Medicine of Rio, in
which he related some cases of homoeopathic treatment, but
these were performed with massive doses of medicines in the
crude state, and were not crowned with much success. Dr.
Mure himself had before this time sent books and medicines to
Brazil, but no one seems to have taken any notice of them.
Shortly after his arrival in Rio he converted a young surgeon of
considerable celebrity as a skilful operator, A. J. Souto de
Amaral, who died two years afterwards without ever abandoning
entirely allopathic procedures. He was shortly after his arrival
dispatched by the Brazilian Government to Ste. Catherine, in
order to found a phalansterian colony, for our hero is an ardent
Fourierist, and a disciple of Swedenborg to boot. On his journey
he treated many patients and spread abroad a knowledge of the
system. At Ste. Catherine he made a convert of Dr. T. de
Silveira. We do not know what success his phalansterian
scheme met with (heaven grant it did not prove like Cabet's
Icarie!), but at the end of March, 1841, we find him again at
Rio, where he was joined by Dr. Lisboa, and he soon succeeded
in converting a number of allopathic physicians, and vigorously
assailed the old school by his publications and successful prac-
tice. He traveled about from place to place creating wherever
he went a homoeopathic public, whom he left in charge of some
medical man, of whom he had made a convert. His custom, we
believe, was, when he arrived in any new town, to address ap-
peals to the priests, in the name of charity and Christianity, to
assist him in the propagation of the system, and by this means
he made numerous converts among the clergy, whose influence
with the laity served to spread a knowledge of homoeopathy in a
very short time, and crowds speedily flocked to his gratuitous
consultations.
His resources being speedily exhausted in these disinterested
efforts to spread the cause, he found himself forced to settle
down to remunerative practice, which he did in Rio in 1842.
498
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
↓
Towards the end of that year, with the assistance of Dr. Martins
and Dr. Lisboa, he founded the Brazilian Institute, and opened
the first dispensary in Rio. In July, 1844, the foundation of the
homœopathic school was laid, and the course of study was
opened in January, 1845. The following is the plan of study.
PREPARATORY.
Languages.—Portuguese, French, German, Latin.
Sciences.-Geometry. Geography, Natural History, Chemistry,
Natural Philosophy, Astronomy.
MEDICAL STUDIES.
Anatomy, Physiology, Homœopathic Doctrine, Pharmacology,
Pathogenesy, Pathology, Hygiene and Prophylaxis, Surgery,
Operations, Accouchments, Clinical Homoeopathy, Toxicology,
History of Medicine.
These studies are distributed over a period of three years.
After a prolonged struggle and numerous difficulties, among
which the incarceration of some of the homœopaths accused of
poisoning, accusations of assassinations, etc., may be mentioned;
at length, in 1846, the Secretary of State for Justice authorized
the school to give certificates of study to prove the capacity of
the students; and on the 2nd of July, 1847, a grand assemblage
was held in order to confer the first certificates. The descrip-
tion of the ceremony in a hall hung with crimson damask and
ornamented with gold and silver flowers and portraits reads
amazingly fine, and was doubtless very imposing. The presi-
dent (Dr. Mure) made a touching speech, and was followed by
the secretary (Dr. Martins), then the vice-president and direc
tor (Dr. Moreira) announced that he had examined the candi-
dates, and found them fully entitled to certificates of study, and
in virtne of the imperial ordonnance so and so, the homoeopathic
school would now proceed to grant these certificates. Hereupon
eight of the members, including the president, each put round
their necks a white ribbon with two knots-the colour indicat-
ing the purity of their motives, the form denoting the orbit of
human knowledge, the knots representing religion and science,
which bind man to God and his neighbour, the whole signifying
the inexhaustible mercy of the Deity, wherein is a refuge from
error and falsehood. The profound significance of Lord Bur-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
499
leigh's celebrated shake of the head is totally eclipsed by that of
this bit of white ribbon. Ah! que n'ai-je étudié plus tôt pour
savoir tout cela? The director now calls up the candidates
and one for all pronounces the following words, which we can-
not resist quoting entire:
"
Receiving the certificate of study which is conferred on me
by the homœopathic school of Brazil, I voluntarily make my
profession of faith, and take the oath hereafter to be signed by
myself and two witnesses in double copy, of which I keep one.
Profession of Faith.
"My hand upon my conscience, [?] and my eyes upturned to
heaven, I embrace Homœopathy, and declare, after having ex-
amined attentively and impartially the various systems of medi-
cine:
((
((
1. That I acknowledge the doctrine of Hahnemann to be
the only true medical doctrine.
"2.—I believe all the functions of life to be guided by an
essentially spiritual force, which I express by the words, vital
dynamism.
"3. I believe, that as the perturbation of that force consti-
tutes disease, the only mode of restoring it to its ordinary state,
called health, consists in stimulating it by agents endowed with
the power of producing in the healthy person symptoms similar
to those manifested by this perturbation termed disease.
“4.—I believe that all substances in nature, even those re-
garded as the most inert, possess the power of acting on the vital
dynamism, because all contain a spiritual principle which they
derive from God.
"5. I believe, that trituration, succussion, and the other pro-
cesses designed to separate in an ever increasing degree the
molecules of matter, develop their dynamic properties.
..
6. I believe, experimentation with these substances, thus
prepared, made upon men and women in good health, to be the
only means of attaining to a knowledge of their dynamic prop-
erties, and of obtaining efficacious medicaments.
"7.—I believe it to be a sacred duty for every man, and par-
ticularly every Christian, to submit himself to pure experimenta-
tion as far as his health admits of it, remembering that our
divine Redeemer consented to suffer an ignominious death on
500
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
the cross to redeem us from sin, and to obtain for us eternal
happiness.
"8.—I adopt the theory of doses taught by Dr. Mure in Sicily,
France and Brazil, in order to develop it by my own experience.
"9-I acknowledge surgery to be the only branch of the old
medical sciences of any real and positive value, and that only for
lesions that require the aid of mechanical means in order that
life may be preserved or improved."
Having repeated this creed, the student puts his name to it.
in due form, and all the candidates say—"This is also our pro-
fession of faith."
And now in religious silence all the company arise to hear the
oath, which runs as follows:
"By our Saviour Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for us,
redeeming our sins by his precious blood, and by virtue of his
pains, obtaining for us eternal felicity; by our divine Redeemer,
whom I ought to imitate as far as human weakness permits,
"I swear:
"I. To redeem the sufferings of the sick by the preventive
sufferings of pure experimentation, which I shall make myself,
or by means of persons animated by the like charity.
"2.-Not to treat patients but by medicaments whose effects
have been well proved, which are in the domain of pure Homœ-
opathy, as I have acknowledged and declared in my profession
of faith.
"3. To observe strictly the precepts of the gospel in the
exercise of my duties, regarding as sacred objects the secrets of
families, virtue, the modesty of women, and the indigence of the
poor.
((
4. To propagate the knowledge of the principles of pure
Homœopathy by all lawful means in my power.
"5.-To profit as much as possible by the propagation of the
principles of Homœopathy, and by the advantages of its applica-
tion, in order to make them serve to diffuse Christianity, to
further Christian instruction and the civilization of the Indians,
and to require of Pagans, Mahommedans, idolators and other
infidels their conversion to the faith before initiating them into
a knowledge of the principles of Homœopathy.
"And this I swear in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost
."
OF HOMEOPATHY.
501
nesses.
To this is affixed the name of the candidate and of his two wit-
And all the other candidates say, "And this we swear."
The spokesman then proceeds:
I promise on my honor,
"I. To make upon myself one pure trial annually.
"2.-To communicate faithfully to the direction of the
Homœopathic Institute of Brazil the result of these trials.
"3.-To give at least once a week gratuitous advice to the
poor in a dispensary of the Institute, or in one of its affiliated
associations, furnishing at my own expense the necessary medi-
cines."
"We
Here he signs his name; and all the candidates say,
promise this."
The president then pronounces the following benediction:
"In the name of Hahnemann, discoverer of Homœopathy,
from whom I have received the mission and the power, and with
the assistance of my coadjutors, the disciples of that messenger
from heaven, I now declare you fit to exercise the new art,
acknowledge you as my colleagues, and as professors of pure
Homœopathy."
The ceremony concluded by the candidates receiving a triple
embrace, whilst the band of the Imperial marines struck up the
"Hymn of Homœopathy." The secretary then attempted to
make a speech, but broke down, or as he expresses it: "Emotion
and satisfaction extinguished his voice and obscured his ideas."
Fortunately the marines came to his aid, and to the tune of the
Brazilian-"God Save the King" or Emperor, the meeting was
dissolved.
This august ceremony was repeated last year, and it is hoped
the occasion for it may be perennial. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 7,
p. 530.)
MURET. Quin in his list of 1834 places this physician at
Morges, Switzerland.
MURRAY, JACOB. Quin in his list of homoeopathic
practitioners of 1834 locates him at Dublin and at Rome.
MUSSEK. In 1819 Mussek was practising Homœopathy in
Seefeld, Lower Austria. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 199.)
MYLO. In the list of contributors to the Hahnemann
502
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Jubilee of 1829 is the name of Mylo, physician in Warsaw. The
name is both on the Zeitung and Quin lists. Kleinert also
mentions this physician.
NANNI, PAULO. Was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy
in Italy. Quin in his list of 1834 places him at Casteldelmonte,
Aquila.
((
NECKER, GEORGE. In the list of the contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829 the name appears as Hofrath Dr.
Necher, Leibarzt S. R. H. des Herzogs von Lucca, zu Lucca in
Italien." His name is on both the Zeitung and Quin lists.
Dadea says that the Bohemian Dr. George Necker introduced
Homoeopathy into Italy, coming to Naples in 1822 as General
Koller's family physician. He was a pupil of Hahnemann and
a practitioner of great distinction, and demonstrated by deeds.
rather than words the truth of the science he professed. Within
a short time he made many striking cures which brought over to
the new therapeutics among others, Drs. Francisco Romani,
Giuseppe Mauro, and Cosmo Maria de Horatiis. In addition to
his private practice, Dr. Necker, in May, 1823, opened in his
own house a dispensary for the poor, which was attended by
several physicians and surgeons of the German army, in which
he was always assisted by Dr. Romani and sometimes by Dr.
Schmit and Dr. Kinzel. The dispensary was closed the follow-
ing year, Necker having been sent by the Queen of Naples to
Rome to take professional charge of her sister, Maria Louisa, of
Bourbon, then Queen of Etruria and mother of the reigning
Duke of Lucca, Carlo Ludovici. Dr. Necker remained in Naples
until General Koller's death in 1826; in September of that year
he was appointed physician to the Duke of Lucca and his court,
a position which he held until 1848. Rapou says that Necker
came from Melnick, a town in Bohemia, near Prague. (World's
Hom. Conv., vol. 2, p. 1068. Rapou, vol. I, pp. 131, 132, 140,
176, 195, 242.)
NIEMEIER. In 1832-4 he was located by the Zeitung and
Quin lists at Tifflis.
NIKOLAI. The Zeitung list of 1832 gives the name and
locates him at Zchopau, as does the Quin list of 1834.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
503
NOACK, ALPH. He received the doctor's degree from the
University of Leipsic in 1831, the same year as that imposter
Fickel, whom he helped to unmask. He was also director of
the Homoeopathic Hospital at Leipsic. Noack, in connection
with Dr. C. F. Trinks, published, in 1843, the first volume of a
Handbook of Homoeopathic Materia Medica. His Olla Podrida,
as the book exposing Fickel was called, was published is 1836,
by Arnold. (See Fickel) (Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 149–165, 221.
Kleinert, p. 135.
World's Conv., vol. 2, p 38.)
NOSTENCHI, JOSE.
braced Homœopathy about 1834.
Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.)
Was a physician of Seville who em-
(World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 324.
writes:
NOZEUS, FRANZ. Dr. Leidbeck writes: Dr. Franz
Nozeus, my only pupil in Homœopathy during the time of my
anatomical teachership at Upsala, practiced Homœopathy with
great success in Nordköping, the greatest manufacturing town
in Sweden, where his father had enjoyed a large allopathic
practice. Unfortunately he was carried off by an organic dis-
ease of the liver in 1860. In a short sketch of his life, published
by myself, principally taken from his letters to me, it is evident
how deep was his conviction of the importance of our medical
reform, how warm his zeal in propagatiug its truths, and how
incessantly he had to struggle against economical and other
difficulties which beset him on all sides. (World's Conv., vol.
2, p. 343.)
ODY, GIUSEPPE. Dadea says that Dr. Ody, of Freiburg,
was a well educated homoeopath and imparted the new doctrine.
to such as sought it. Drs. Romani and General Garaffa both
state that they got their first notions of Homoeopathy from Dr.
Ody. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 1067.)
OLHANT. According to the list of Quin of 1834, Olhant
was a medical inspector in Wurzburg. Rapou also mentions
him as one of the distinguished homoeopathists of Bavaria.
(Rapou, vol. 2, p. 389.)
PABST, JOHANN C. L. Was practicing Homoeopathy in
Copenhagen as early as 1830. Hansen writes: Pabst was born
in 1795 at Corsoer, in the principality of Lundbeck. He did not
504
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
study at the University. In June, 1836, he set up as a physician
in Copenhagen, having previously been regimental surgeon at
Sleswig, and having made several voyages to the East Indies as
sea-surgeon. He was a very talented man and had an excellent
knowledge of drugs. He had a very good practice, being gen-
erally successful in his cures; once, having saved the life of his
adopted daughter, he was praised in very strong terms by an
allopathic physician; she was marrind to a professor of music
and was, when confined, in great danger. Pabst gave her
Aconite, and in the course of the night she rallied completely.
On seeing this change the physician attending her said to Pabst,
"You are the right doctor for people who are at the point of
death." My father was, in 1834, cured by Pabst of a painful
eczema which had been declared incurable by several allopathic
physicians. Pabst died May 18, 1861, of erysipelas. He was
converted by Dr. Lund on account of being cured by him. (Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 13, p. 694. Internat. Hom. Congress, 1891, p. 986.)
PAILLON. One of the pioneers of Homoeopathy, who,
according to Quin, was practicing at Bordeaux in 1834.
PALMIERI. Was one of the early Homoeopaths. Accord-
ing to Quin he was, in 1834, located at Fabriano, Italy.
PANTHIN. The name is on Quin's list of 1834, at which
time he was located at Dibonne, Switzerland. Malan, in the
British Journal for 1844, mentions Panthin and that he had
declared himself a Homoeopathist. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 2,
p.327.)
PASSAVENT. The Zeitung list of 1832 locates him in
Frankfort-on-the-Main. Quin in 1834 gives the same location.
Rapou mentions meeting Passavent at Frankfort, and says that
his conversation proves him not to be a partisan of our school.
Passavent is an allopath very liberal, who has made some in-
complete essays in Homœopathy and who practices ordinary
medicine with certain modifications. (Rapou, vol. 2, p. 591.)
-
PERRUSSEL, FRANCOIS. A Mexican magazine for
February 25, 1873, contains the following: Death of Dr. Per-
russel, pere. It is with sentiments of regret that we announce
the death of Dr. Perrussel, who died in Mentone:
OF HOMEOPATHY.
505
Dr. Chauvet said: Homœopathy has met with a great loss in
the death of Dr. F. Perrussel, suddenly stricken with apoplexy
at the age of sixty-five. For some years he has passed the winter
at Mentone, not at Cannes, as has been announced. Many
journals of Lyons, Macon and Valence contain memoirs, but
especially one, in the Lyon salut Public, is worthy of quotation:
A man who was by adoption a Lyonnaise, and who was one of
the most devoted propagators of Homoeopathy, died at Mentone
on December 9, 1872. There are few left of the direct pupils of
Hahnemann, and he was one of the most ardent of these disciples,
Dr. Perrussel, pupil at our Lyceum, and for a long time interne
to our hospital. When the cholera first appeared in France, at
Marseilles, a bronze medal was given to him for his valor. In
1849, at Nantes, during an epidemic of cholera which claimed
many victims; in 1854 in Champagne, where he had an official
commission from the government, he was faithful, and received
for his devotion a gold medal. He also attended at Anjou, in
1857, a terrible epidemic of diphtheria. Some years later, in
1863, he was named chevalier of the order of Charles III.
He left two sons; one was a physician at Macon, the other was
an officer of Spahis in Africa.
After having brilliantly defended his thesis for doctor at
Montpellier in 1833, Perrussel returned to Lyons and became
acquainted with that brilliant phalanx of physicians, Rapou,
Pere, Dessaix, Gueyrard the elder, Jouru, Chazel, Tournier,
Bravais, etc. The following year, 1834, Perrussel was for some
time secretary to Dessaix; he was then called to Dr. Gastier as
aide in the hospital at Thoissey, where he (Gastier) had intro-
duced homeopathic medicine. From that time his principles
were fixed. For thirty-seven years he was faithful to his mission
as an homoeopathic reformer, and his name is well-known in
Marseilles, Champagne and all the East. Perrussel left Saumur
in 1861, going to Paris, where he edited for four years with
Jahr, the Bulletin de l'Art de Guerir. After it was stopped he
retired to Bordeaux. He was introduced by Drs. Jahr and Cros-
erio to Hahnemann in Paris, and it was always to him a great
honor to be called a pupil of the Master.
Perrussel was a great
writer. Besides many articles in the homoeopathic journals,
notably in the Bulletin, and in some political journals, he pub-
lished many important works, which are as follows: "Trip of a
506
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Homœopathic Physician to the Cholera at Marseilles," 1835;
"Letters on Homoeopathy," 1837; "Criticism on Homœopathy
and Allopathy," 1846; "The Truth in Medicine," 1846; "The
Sweating Sickness and the Cholera," 1856; 'Letter to the
French Physicians," by Dr. Des Guidi, 1860; "Guide to the
Physician in the Choice of a Means of Cure," 1860; "Homo-
opathy in the Senate," 1864
In private life Perrussel was devoted as a husband and father,
lively in disposition, frank and loyal. He was born at Saint
Cyr, some miles from Lyons, about 1810 or 1812. His first
studies were in Lyons, followed later by a course of medicine in
Montpellier, where he was interne of a hospital. What led him
to Homœopathy? He had already prepared his thesis when he
was visited by a friend, to whom he read it; the friend said he
was not qualified to appreciate it and still less to judge its
merits. "But in your quality as a friend of progress," said the
friend to him, "I wish to speak to you of the great discovery of
a German doctor, which it is likely will greatly advance medical
science." The friend placed at his disposition a work of Dr.
Bigel ("Examen de la Methode Curative Nommee Homoeo-
pathique," Varsovie, 1827). When the sweating sickness and
cholera appeared in Champagne in 1854, Perrussel and Dr. Petit
obtained a special commission from the minister to carry medical
aid to unhappy victims. Both were rewarded with gold medals.
In 1847 he received a special apostolic letter from Pope Pius IX
in remembrance of his work-"The Truth in Medicine Found
and Demonstrated by the Laws of Universal Attraction." He was
corresponding member of the Surgical Circle of Montpellier, of
the Society of Homœopathists of Leipzig, Leige, Madrid, Lyons,
Paris, etc.
(
The above has been condensed from very interesting accounts
by Drs. Chauvet and Leboucher in the Bibliothique Homœo-
pathique, vol. 5. (El Crit. Medico., vol. 14, P, 95.
Bibl. Hom.,
vol. 5, p. 138.)
PESCHIER, CHARLES GASPARD. The Zeitung list of
homoeopathic physicians practicing in 1832 places Dr. Peschier
in Geneva. Quin's list of two years later also mentions his
In the British Journal for January, 1854, appears the
following: The subject of this memoir was born at Geneva on
name.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
507
Friday, March 13, 1782. We mention the day of the week
because it was the circumstance of having been born on a
Friday that Dr. Peschier was wont to attribute the misfortune
that seemed constantly to overtake him in life. He went to
Paris to study medicine, and devoted himself to the cultivation
of the medical sciences with such diligence and zeal as to com-
mand the esteem of his masters, especially of the celebrated
Antoine Dubois, with whom he was a great favorite. He took
his degree in 1809. Before this, in 1804, he published a memoir
on croup on the occasion of a concours established by the govern-
ment on the subject, which was very highly thought of. In
1812 he followed the course of medical instruction at Montpellier.
In 1822 he published an essay on the treatment of pneumonia
and pleurisy by Tartar emetic in large doses, and asserted that by so
treating these diseases he had not lost a case. This essay created
a great sensation in the medical world, and spread the fame
of its author far and wide-in fact, he gained a reputation
from it disproportioned to his merits as the originator of
the system, for there is little doubt the treatment was
derived from Rasori, and disproportioned to its merits
as a successful method, for Dietl has proved that the fatality
attending the administration of Tartar emetic in pneumonia
is nearly equal to that of bleeding in the same disease.
In 1832 his attention was called by a Russian gentleman of
rank to Homoeopathy, and as his knowledge of the German
language was perfect he set about studying Hahnemann's
works, and the same year he visited Hahnemann at Coethen.
During his journey he was very well received by the medical
men of Germany, to whom his name was familiar by his treatise
on tartar emetic, and he got a cordial reception from Hahne-
mann, who was proud to claim a man of his distinction as pupil.
On his return to Geneva he commenced, in 1833, the publica-
tion of a monthly journal devoted to Homoeopathy, entitled,
Bibliothèque Homeopathique de Genéve, which continued in exist-
ence until 1842; it was the first homopathic periodical published
in the French language, and it exercised an undoubted influence
in promoting the extension of Homœopathy, not only in Switzer-
land, but throughout France. Among the articles in this jour-
nal from Dr. Peschier's pen, his "Letters on Homœopathy,"
addressed to Professors Forget, Louis, and Gerdy, deserve espe-
508
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
cial mention. The Bibliothèque was not a good pecuniary specu-
lation; in fact, its publication was only abandoned on account of
financial difficulties. Dr. Peschier belonged more to the specific
school of homoeopathists than to the so-called Hahnemannists.
He was an indefatigable worker, he spoke most of the languages
of Europe, and at the age of sixty he set himself to study He-
brew, in order to be able to read the Bible in the original. In
addition to the medical sciences, his attainments were consider-
able in literature, philosophy, botany, astronomy, mathematics,
and theology. He was a great lover of the arts, and was very
fond of the theatre, thereby greatly offending his more rigid and
puritanical friends. He was a member of many scientific so-
cieties, and was elected honorary member by almost all the
homœopathic societies of Europe and America. His benevo-
lence of disposition was so great that he could not resist the
claims of others on his purse, the consequence of which was,
that in the last years of his life he actually was reduced to ex-
treme poverty, and was often unable to pay for his daily meals.
He died on the 31st of May last, and has left a name that will be
remembered with gratitude and affection, not only by those who
enjoyed his friendship, but also by all who are interested in the
extension of Homœopathy.
Dr. H. V. Malan, in a letter written in 1844, mentions Pes-
chier as a man distinguished by his talents and writings, who,
since his adoption of Homoeopathy, had published many books
in its favor, and is well known as the editor of the Bibliothèque
Homœopathique
Dr. C. G. Peschier, of Geneva, became interested in Homo-
pathy in 1832. He attended a meeting of the Central Union at
Leipzig, in August of that year, and afterwards visited Hahne-
mann at Coethen. An account of the meeting of the society,
and also of the visit to Hahnemann, was furnished by him in
two letters published in the Bibliothèque Homœopathique, Vol. 1.,
1833. This is the first homopathic periodical published in the
French language, and Dr. Peschier afterwards became its
editor.
Dr. Peschier was at Coethen about the middle of August,
1832, and remained there for some time, learning new medical
doctrine at the home and from the lips of its discoverer.
The Allg. hom. Zeitung contains the following:
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
509
Dr. Charles Gaspard Peschier died in Geneva, his native city,
on the 31st of May, 1853. He was born there on Friday, the
13th of March, 1782; he is said to have ascribed to these dates,
namely to Friday and to the 13th of March, the various mis-
fortunes of his life. Having received his education in the insti-
tutions of Geneva he went to Paris to perfect himself in medicine.
The celebrated Dubois even then considered him a perfect
master of his art, and in his examinations he, indeed, received
the highest honors. Having received his diploma on the 31st of
August, 1809, he went back to his native city to practice as
physician. As early as 1804 he had written a treatise on croup,
which received great praise at the governmental competition for
the premium essay. In 1812, with the consent of the Supreme
Chancellor of the University, he delivered a course of lectures
concerning medical studies at the school in Montpellier. He
took a very active part in the Bibliothèque Britannique, a compi-
lation which is highly valued. Being dissatisfied with the re-
sults of venesection in inflammation of the chest, he used Tartar
emetic in large doses in this disease, and published in 1822 in
the Journal des Sciences et Arts de Genève a letter to the editor
concerning this treatment, in which he assured him that he had
used this method for inflammation of the chest for five years and
had not lost a single patient.
He stated that he had been led to this remedy because: (1) It
made the circulation more easy by cleansing the first circulatory
paths, and those freed the chest; (2) that by disturbing the
digestion it diminished the amount of blood prepared, and (3)
by the excitation of the whole organism it diminished the rush
of blood to the chest. This material explanation, though the
cure is effected without such disturbances, is totally different
from the physiological theory of Rasori. his predecessor, yea, it
is contrary to it; this explains his silence as to the inventor, as
well as the generally received name of the Peschierian Method,
though it does not excuse it, for Rasori is really its author and
his publication of the method was made as early as 1794.
It may be said that Peschier, so to say, smuggled in the use of
the Tartar emetic into medicine, because he left aside and un-
noticed the whole radical revolution of a counter stimulant and
ignored it. Only in so far can he be considered its founder.
In the year 1809 he published a treatise on "Children's Dis-
510
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
她
​eases,"
" and in 1831 his "Notices et Documents sur le Cholera."
About this time his attention was directed to Homoeopathy by
a noble Russian, and as he was a master of the German language
he studied it from the original fountain, and he soon was com-
pletely convinced of its truth through the cures of diseases con-
sidered incurable, effected by Count Des Guidi, in Lyons and
Geneva. From this time he devoted all his strength to the new
doctrine, and in 1832 he traveled to Coethen to gain an entirely
accurate knowledge and to make the acquaintance of Hahne-
mann, who gave him a most friendly reception. He published
his remarks about this journey and the reception given him by
physicians on account of his celebrity owing to Tartar emetic
while these same physicians rejected the far greater merits of
Hahnemann, deeply wounded his modesty.
At his return to Geneva, he found several of his colleagues
already united in a homoeopathic society, and became the secre-
tary of this union. With the members of this society he pub-
lished a monthly journal, the Bibliothèque Homeopathique, which
for ten years served to spread a knowledge of Homoeopathy in
France, England, Spain and Italy.
His literary labors are well known and used; he especially
sought to spread a knowledge of the labors of the German
homœopaths, through translations and extracts. Besides this,
during his last years, after the death of his colleague Du Fresne,
all the work of the publication of the journal lay on his shoulders.
But he would have mastered these labors if financial difficulties
had not, in 1841, disturbed the publication. He looked closely
to the purity of the homoeopathic teaching, and was therefore
frequently insulted by imprudent innovators. But he most
delighted in directing the sharpness of his criticism against the
opponents of Homoeopathy, and his letters to Professors Forget,
Louis and Gerdy remain unanswered. His mathematical mind
fought against the potencies, and in the last years of his prac-
tice he more frequently used the mother tinctures than the 4th
and higher dilutions.
Charles Peschier was gifted with a wonderful memory and was
remarkably industrious. He could speak most of the European
languages, and was resolute enough to undertake in his sixtieth
year the study of Hebrew in order to be able to read the Bible
in the original, in which he succeeded. He had knowledge in
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
511
everything worthy of being known, in literature, botany, an-
atomy, mathematics and even in theology. During the last
years of his life he would read his works concerning the Bible
in the society of his friends. He also loved the arts; next to
the intercourse with his friends the theatre was his recreation,
which caused some disfavor with his rigorous fellow citizens.
He was regimental surgeon of the carabiniers of Aubonne;
honored by many foreign learned societies, for a long time secre-
tary of the first Gallic Society, corresponding member of the
Royal Society of Science and of the Arts in Nancy, of the Medi-
cal Academy in Bern, of the Academy of Science, the Arts and
Belles Lettres in Dijon, of the Society of the Sciences and of
Arts in Maçon, of the Archæological Society in Athens, of the
Central Society of Homoeopathic Physicians, of the Homœo-
pathic Society in Liege, of the Medical Society in Rio Janeiro,
of the Medical Homœopathic College in Pennsylvania, of the
Homœopathic Society in Turin, etc.
Although he was an original character, he had a fine feeling
beart, wholly devoted to his friends. His inexhaustible bene-
factions caused him to lose his paternal fortune in the latter end
of his life, so that he lived almost in destitution. 'When a
man in his seventieth year cannot every day pay for his dinner,
although he has worked all his life long," so he wrote to Croserio,
"I see no refuge from this misery but death, which I hope will
not let me wait a long time." And even so it came to pass.
(From the Journal de la Soc. Gallic.) (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 2,
Þ. 327; vol. 12, p. 166. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 47. p. 55. Everest's
Popular View of Homœopathy, New York, 1842, p. 128. Brad-
ford's Hahnemann, p. 280.)
"
PETERSON, ALEXANDER.
Was a Russian apothecary
who did much to propagate Homœopathy in Russia. When the
cholera in 1831 appeared in Pensa, where he lived, he was
authorized by the governor to give medical aid. He treated
175 cases with a loss of 29 only. He contributed many papers
to Stapf's Archiv. The Zeitung of Sept. 16, 1860, tell us, Dr.
Peterson, of Pensa, is dead. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 61, p. 88.
World's Hom. Conv., vol. 2, p. 258. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38,
p. 311.)
512
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
PETTERSON. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in Calmar,
Sweden. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 343.)
PETROZ, HENRI. Founded the first homoeopathic pharmacy
in Paris. In 1833 he began to prepare medicines and to put up
the prescriptions of a few physicians, and in May, 1837, he
opened his pharmacy. The British Journal says: The dis-
tinguished and venerable disciple of Hahnemann died at Paris
on the 29th of August, 1859, in his eightieth year.
The Revue Internationale contains the following necrology
taken from a political journal:
Petroz was the means of spreading, or we may even say the
second creator of the science, the laws of which Hahnemann
had discovered. The homoeopathic school owes to him much,
and it also recognized him as one of its most prominent adher-
ents. Admired for his knowledge and the penetration of his
practiced eye, Petroz was loved by all the society of Paris for
the exceeding goodness of his heart. He numbered the most
celebrated personages of the Faubourg St. Germain, many
artists and scholars among his clients, and there are probably
few of those devoted to the arts who have not asked for the
benefit of his counsel and of his devotion to science and art.
He had a nobility and grandezza of manner which filled every
one with affection and reverence. His calm and dignified bear-
ing made his appearance the most handsome imaginable. De-
spite his great age, he still showed an incredible vigor and
activity. An accidental acute disease carried him off in his 78th
year.
A few days before his death he gave the following proof of his
noble character: Paul de Musset, whom he had not seen for a
long time, came to him to consult him. After Petroz had made
his prescription, Paul de Musset was drawing out a gold coin
from his purse. Whom do you believe Dr. Petroz to be? said
he. But, my dear Doctor, answered de Musset, permit me, I
pray you
Do you then desire to insult me, and have
you forgotten that I was your father's faithful friend? But
when de Musset showed himself unwilling to desist, Petroz said:
It seems you insist on paying Dr. Petroz, then my dear friend,
if the payment should be commensurate, embrace him.
Every one who was acquainted with Petroz knows how well
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
513
he deserved his reputation. To the younger physicians who
consulted him he was a conscientious guide, a real father. He
was gifted with eminent qualities. Gifted with a sound and
acute mind matured by diligent study, he did not act like
certain superficial men, who laugh at a new movement without
investigating its truth. He believed with the celebrated Arago,
that in science we must not condemn anything a priori, however
absurd it may seem at first sight.
The teachings of Hahnemann had been agitating the learned
world of Germany for many years, before the system, or even
its name, became known in France. With sarcasms the name of
Homœopathy found its way into the French language, with
sarcasms the teachings of the great reformer are even at this day
combatted, but this does not prevent their constant diffusion.
But for Dr. Petroz neither wit nor words had any demonstra-
tive force. Independent from the firmness of his character and
his position, possessing a handsome property and an extensive
practice, Petroz was not infatuated with any particular system,
as in medicine he sought especially for the art of healing. He
therefore studied the theories of Hahnemann, conscientiously
imitated his experiments and communicated with the master.
Convinced by facts, he was not afraid of disgracing himself or
injuring himself by unfurling the banner of Homœopathy in
Paris.
We have often heard him discussing the questions separating
the two schools. He did this with an amiability which even
disarmed hatred and with a superiority which showed his deep
knowledge. Tolerant and reconciliatory by nature, he was
hostile to all extravagance. He knew how to stop where
thoughtless prejudice begins. What is called pure Homoeopathy
by some homoeopaths provoked his pitying smile. He saw in
it the destruction of true science, the fetters of progress. He
rectified some views of Hahnemann, which to him appeared too
one-sided. He did not consider it a lack of the regard due to
the master to distinguish between his genuinely scientific prin-
ciples and views from those into which he had been led by the
heat of the conflict with the opposing school. Assaulted most
desperately, the German reformer also defended himself most
desperately. But the measure of the truth which will survive
the prejudices and the passionate assault of the times will not
514
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
be found in the polemics though these were not without use for
its advance.
Every century has brought its discoveries useful to science.
The investigations of past times in so far as they were founded
on experiment are as valuable as those of the preeent. To wipe
out the acquisitions of our ancestors, pretending that they were
only barbarians, who were fumbling about in the dark, would
be in itself a barbaric procedure and would mean an extinction
of that light instead of placing it beside us to increase the
brightness. So thought the learned and venerable Petroz. He
knew the value of all the branches of medicine because he had
thoroughly studied them. He knew that Therapy is a leading
branch of it, but that it does not constitute the whole of medical
science. In the hands of this physician the torch of Hahne-
mann served to throw light on all truth, but not to light the
funeral pyre on which all the treasures collected by our ancestors
might be indiscriminately cremated. (A. H. Z., vol. 59, pp.
88, III. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 17, p. 696. World's Conv., vol.
2, p. 154.)
PEZZILLO, ROCCO. According to Quin, Pezzillo was 'in
1834, practicing Homœopathy in Naples. Dadea says that he was
one of the active managers of the Effemeridi, an early homœo-
pathic journal, and that he was esteemed. But that he was af-
fected by the unfortunate disposition to conciliate in matters
that are irreconcilable, and he styled himself an eclectic; and to
promote eclecticism in medicine and to reconcile discordant
opinions on the principles "similia similibus" and "contrariis
contraria he read and publicly defended two essays before the
Naples Academy of Medicine. In the Effemeridi he stoutly
contended for these views and the discussion would not have
been inglorious for him had not the cause of conciliation and
eclecticism been desperate. (Worla's Conv., vol. 2, p. 1086.
Rapou., vol. 1, p. 135.)
""
PICTET. According to the list of Quin published in 1834
Pictet was at that time practicing Homoeopathy at Lyons.
PINCIANO, LOPEZ. He was a medical graduate of the
University of Montpellier. He later went to Madrid. He
was appointed physician in chief of the canal of Castile, and as
1
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
515
there were many cases of severe fevers among the workmen he
employed the homoeopathic treatment, and the result justified
his previous convictions. In 1834 he treated many cases of
cholera in Madrid. Inspired with a desire to propagate the
truth of Homœopathy, he translated into Spanish and published:
"Letter to Dr. and Count Des Guidi to the French Physicians;"
Hahnemann's "Organon;" his "Materia Medica Pura;" Hart-
mann's “Homœopathic Pharmacopoeia;" Bigel's "Homœopathic
Regimen;" "Repertory of Homœopathic Medicine," by Dr.
Haas; "The Homoeopathic Medical Doctrine considered in its
theoretical and practical relations," by Dr. Gueyrard; "The
Manual of Homoeopathy," by Dr. Jahr. This was a very im-
portant service to Spanish medicine. But the times were bad;
there was a ruinous civil war; a great deal of poverty; the physi-
cians were many of them wanderers; Pinciano was young and
unknown in the land; so that the progress of the homoeopathic
doctrines was slow. Occasionally some studious professor would
read one of Pinciano's translations; they made trials of the
practice; they asked Pinciano to procure for them remedies
properly prepared according to the formula of Hahnemann. He
therefore kept an assortment of remedies accurately prepared for
their use.
About 1834 he commenced the publication of a
journal, the Moniteur Medico Chirurgical, but this was continued
but a short time.
From the World's Conv.: Dr. Lopez Pinciano, a graduate of
the College of Montpellier, a man of great merit and distinction,
was appointed physician-in-chief of the canal of Castile, and as
there were many cases of severe fevers among the workmen he
employed the homoeopathic treatment, the result justifying bis
convictions of the superiority of this treatment. In 1834 he
treated many cases of cholera in Madrid, and at the same time
published a periodical called the Medico Chirurgical Monitor,
with the intent of giving publicity to the Hahnemannian doctrine.
Pinciano was an indefatigable worker, and published from 1835
and onwards translations of the "Organon;" of Des Guidi's "Let-
ters to Physicians;" of the "Dietetic Manual of Homopathy,'
by Bigel; of the "Homœopathic Pharmacopoeia," by Hartmann;
of the "Medico Homœopathic Memorandum," by Hasas; of the
"Manual of Homoeopathic Remedies," by Jahr; of the "Thera-
peutics of Intermittent Fever," by Bonninghausen; of the
K
""
516
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
"Pathogenetic Effect of Drugs," by Weber; of the "Examina-
tion of Homœopathic Doctrine," by Guizard; and of Hahne-
mann's "Materia Medica," of which latter he published only
two volumes, leaving the translation unfinished. (Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. I, p. 199. World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 323. Rapou., vol.
I, p. 178. U. S. Med. Inves., vol. 10, p. 84.)
PINGET. According to Quin's list of 1834, he was practic-
ing Homœopathy at that time in La Roche, France.
PIORRY. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy at Paris. (Bibl.
Hom., vol. II, p. 124.)
PLAUBEL, JULIUS AUGUST. Was a contributor to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. At this time he was in practice
at Gotha in Thuringia. The Zeitung and Quin lists locate him
at that place in 1832 and 1834. Rapou gives some notion of his
practice by telling that Dr. Plaubel of Gotha pretends to give
with success all the mineral medicines in the 30th dilution.
Kleinert says that he became a homoeopathist in 1828. Dr.
Plaubel believed with Korsakoff, that one medicated globule
would infect many unmedicated ones. (Rapou., vol. 2, p. 550.
Kleinert, p. 212.)
PLEYEL, JOSEPH VON. Was a contributor to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829; in that list he is mentioned as
Quarantine physician at Brood in Slavonia. The Zeitung and
Quin lists also mention him.
POUGENS. The name is on the Quin list of 1834, at which
time he was practicing in Paris.
PREU, PAUL SIGMUND KARL. Doctor of Medicine and
Royal Bavarian District, and City Physician at Nuremberg.
This account is taken from Stapff's Archiv.:
A second time I perform the sad duty of honoring in this
journal, the memory of a man who was intimately conjoined with
the friends of Homoeopathy, and who has been snatched, through
a premature death, from Homoeopathy and its friends in the mid-
dle of a career rich in fame and activity. The following bio-
graphic communication we owe to the kindness of the brother
of our deceased friend, to Mr. Preu, Doctor of Laws in Nurem-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
517
berg. It allows us a pleasing view of his life, devoted to science
in general and in the last decennium to Homœopathy in particu-
lar; and it causes us to recognize what he would yet have ac-
complished if a longer activity had been granted to him here.
below and thus what we have lost in him.—[Dr. Stapf, the
Editor.]
P. S. K. Preu was born September 1, 1774, at Lauf, a small
country town belonging to the Imperial City of Nuremberg,
where his father, Dr. Jacob Bernhard Preu, was at that time a
physician. Already as a child he showed good abilities, which
his father, who himself directed his education, understood how
to use and to develop. He comprehended with ease and retained
firmly. This personal instruction was continued by my father
even when he, a few years later, moved to Nuremberg and took
his place in the medical college that had been long before
founded by Joachin Cammerar, and which then was in good repute
even in foreign parts. He early instructed the boy in the knowl-
edge of the human body and of botany. In this latter study he
was ably assisted by the celebrated botanist, Dr. Pauzer, a col-
league and intimate friend of the father. The boy was inde-
fatigable in collecting plants and in arranging them accord-
ing to the system of Linnæus, and in a few years his Herbarium
vivum grew to considerable dimensions. Once, however, his
zeal almost cost him his life, for eagerly reaching out for a plant
by the bank of the brook he fell into the swift flowing stream
and would surely have drowned unless help had been quickly
afforded him.
4
After passing through the higher classes of the gymnasium at
Nuremberg, having been well equipped with preparatory knowl-
edge, he entered, in 1791, in the seventeenth year of his age,
the University of Altdorf, where in medicine he enjoyed the
instruction of the professors Vogel, Hofman, Ackerman and
Schreger. But he clung especially to Dr. Ackerman, who
showed a special attachment to the talented and industrious
youth, whom he at one occasion styled "scholæ suæ princeps,"
and who also, outside of the lectures, proved himself his teacher.
and directing friend, and zealously enkindled and sustained his
love for the higher medical knowledge which lies outside the
domain of routine science.
518
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
In the year 1792 the Medical College of Nuremberg celebrated
the bi-centennial jubilee of its foundation. Preu, then not yet
eighteen years old, wrote to this college an "Epistola gratu-
latoria,” which was received with great applause, and he treated
in it "de vita meritis I. Camerarii conditoris heyusce collegii."
In the year 1795 he graduated as doctor and wrote an inaugural
dissertation, de interpretis Hippocratis gracis." Thereby he
showed his erudition, which was also publicly recognized in the
critiques of it which were printed. The great scholar, Kurt
Sprengel, wrote concerning it a critique, appearing in the Allgem.
Lit. Ziet., 1796, No. 18: "The friends of ancient Greek literature
herewith receive a very acceptable present from a worthy pupil
of the learned Dr. Ackerman, a little work which has been com-
posed with unusual care and practical knowledge, and the critic
acknowledges that he has learned considerable from it."
After the completion of his academic studies, to enlarge by
practice his knowledge in surgery, he entered the Austrian
service as assistant army surgeon. But he was disappointed and
found the functions appointed to him unworthy of his knowledge
and of the rank of a physician. He only remained in the army
for a few months and then undertook a journey to extend his
knowledge.
In this journey he learned to know the most distinguished and
learned physicians of Germany, and benefited by their instructive
intercourse in his further progress. After his return he was re-
ceived in the above-mentioned college and among the practicing
physicians of Nuremberg. His skill was soon properly recog-
nized by the public, and even more by the municipal authorities,
especially as a physician in mental diseases. His father, who
was physician in the hospital and also city physician, owing to
his own illness and weakness from age, called in the assistance of
his son in his work, and he thus had opportunities to prove his
great fitness for public service as a physician. At the organiza-
tion of the Bavarian courts, in 1809. he was appointed physician
to the royal municipal court. His reports and opinions were
distinguished by a correct comprehension of the leading move-
ments, a thorough judgment, as well as a clear presentation.
Besides his municipal and private practice he also devoted
himself to literature and furnished essays and critiques to vari-
ous journals. To his activity in this direction was due his re-
-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
519
ceiving the honor of being made an ordinary member of the
Physico-Medical Society of Erlangen, and of being made an
honorary member of the Sydenham Society in Halle. Finally
he wrote a pamphlet: "What Have We to Fear From the Cholera
Morbus?" Nuremberg, 1831, in which he sought to prove that
the generally spreading fear that cholera would penetrate our
regions and the belief as to its almost absolute fatality were ex-
aggerated. Besides this publicly declared intention there was
a more hidden one. He secondarily desired to inform the larger
public, for which this pamphlet was intended, of the superior
excellence of the homeopathic school of medicine above the al-
lopathic, and to remove the prejudices to Homoeopathy, which
were zealously fostered by allopathic physicians. His father
already had opposed many of the compounded medicines and
mostly ordered simple ones, and the son, well weighing his
father's reasons, followed his example.
All the more he felt himself in consequence drawn to Homo-
opathy, and through continuous studies he penetrated its princi-
ples, publicly professed them and furnished several very valuable
articles to Stapf's Archiv fuer die homeopathische Heilkunde, and
was for several years the only homoeopathic physician in Nurem-
berg, until his worthy friend and colleague, Dr. Reuter, followed
his example.
C
In the year 1832 he determined to attend the meeting of the
homœopathic physicians at Leipzig, and he anticipated the
greatest pleasure from exchanging thoughts and experience
with so many distinguished scholars. Not only was he de-
termined on this journey, but he had already begun it and gone.
half way when he met an insurmountable obstacle and had to
turn back. He consoled himself that the next year would satisfy
his eager longings, but only a few months later death withdrew
him suddenly from this world.
He died December 18, 1832, in his fifty-ninth year, and left
behind him his third wife and a son from his second marriage.
Not only his relatives and friends, but also his fellow citizens,
deeply felt his loss, for he labored among them not only as
physcian, but also as a man and as a citizen, animated by as much
intelligence as love.
Preu's name is on the Quin list of 1834, at which time he was
practicing Homœopathy at Nuremberg. Rapou says: The
520
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
ancient city of Nuremburg is one of the first where Homœopathy
was introduced. In 1822 a high medical authority, a practi-
tioner very learned, a highly esteemed son of the major of the
hospital, the doctor, Karl Preu, adopted openly the new method.
This was a precious acquisition for our school in its difficult
period, when it counted less than fifteen practitioners and had
an enemy in every doctor. Preu was distinguished in the midst
of the first disciples of Hahnemann. It was this practitioner
who has the honor to have made the first study of the effects of
mineral waters on the healthy body. In 1826 he experimented
on himself with the Carlsbad waters, and he engaged his friend,
Dr. Hartlaub, of Leipsic, to also investigate the same. The
papers on which these investigations were placed have not been
found, but they possess all that was published on the baths of
Ragozi near Kissengen, which make a pathogenesis of 140
symptoms. He published many articles in the Archives
Homœopathiques. Karl Preu died in 1832, at the age of 60
years, and left a worthy successor at Nuremburg in Dr. Reuter.
(Rapou, vol. 2, p. 389. Archiv f. d. hom. Heillkunst, vol. 13, pt.
3, p. 113.)
PULTE, JOSEPH HIPPOLYTE. The following interest-
ing sketch of Dr. Pulte was published in the United States
Medical and Surgical Journal and afterwards issued as a pamph-
let, with a lithograph of this distinguished man:
G
Joseph Hippolyte Pulte was born on the 6th of October, 1811,
at Meschede, in the Prussian Province of Westphalia. He was
the youngest of four brothers. His father, Hermann Joseph
Pulte, M. D., was the Medical Director of one of the Govern-
ment institutions for the education of midwives, and as these in-
stitutions had to be organized all over the newly-acquired
Provinces, he was especially deputed for that purpose, besides
presiding over the institution confined to his care. He was also
one of the co-editors of the “Manual for the Instruction of Mid-
wives throughout the whole Kingdom," a work which, in its
sphere, has become famous, and a model for similar ones in
other States. In this position his father continued to be active
to the last day of his life, so full of usefulness and blessings to
his fellow-men, that the family motto, "virtute ad astra," was,
* Rapou in another place gives this honor to Gross.
1
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
521
in his career, fully verified. He left a glorious example as a
precious heritage to his children.
Joseph H., in his early youth, was so impressed with the
goodness and worth of his father, that he often, in his childish
fancy, literally stepped in his father's footsteps, while walking
behind him, so that he might realize the more the truth of the
adage-"Step in your father's footsteps."
No wonder that the boy and youth should already have a
predilection for that profession of which he saw his revered
father to be such a respected member; especially was this the
case when he was reminded so often of the noble science of medi-
cine, and of the blessings and high aspirations which always
accompany its faithful and successful practice.
His eldest brother had already entered upon a promising
medical career, and was very desirous to see his youngest
brother, Joseph H., follow his example in devoting himself to
the study of medicine. This was done. After Joseph H. had
completed his classical course at the Gymnasium of Soest, and
his medical studies at the University of Marburg, he accepted
an invitation from his oldest brother to accompany him to
America, where he intended to settle in St. Louis, Mo.
Joseph H. eagerly embraced this opportunity to visit trans-
atlantic regions; he sailed for the United States in the spring of
1834, to reach St. Louis, via New York, while his brother had
preceded him to that place, via New Orleans.
But man proposes, and God disposes! On his journey through
Pennsylvania, Joseph H. was induced by a personal friend to
stay in Cherryville, Northampton County. Here he formed the
acquaintance of Dr. Wm. Wesselhoft, at that time residing at
Bath, nine miles from Cherryville.
Through him he, for the first time, heard something better
than ridicule when conversing about Homœopathy and its
doctrines; he was the first who induced him to test its merits by
actual experiments. These early trials were so successful that
Dr. Pulte became perfectly enthusiastic in his devotion to the
new doctrine, and at once entered with great zeal upon the study
of Homœopathy; henceforth he did not shrink from any hardship
or expense necessary to acquire a complete knowledge of the
same.
It was, indeed, providential for him that his lot now was cast
522
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
far away from his older brother, whose influence over him
would have prevented the growth of the new seed, even if re-
ceived at all; but separated from him, as he now was, by hun-
dreds of miles, he was permitted to study out for himself the
new problems of science and practical life, as they now so
abundantly presented themselves to him.
It was difficult and expensive at that early time (1834) to
procure the means of prosecuting the study of Homœopathy,
but they were highly prized when procured. There were then
as yet no text-books, no repertories; a greater part of the facts
and practical knowledge existed only in manuscript, sent to
America from Europe, and circulated to be studied and copied.
Thus the first attempts at a more systematic and fixed treatment
of Asiatic cholera were transmitted to the Northampton County
Society of Homoeopathic Physicians, in manuscript from Europe,
and by its members piously studied and reverentially copied.
This was a slow way of acquiring knowledge, and on that
account, certainly objectionable; but it was the only possible one
at that time. Knowledge, however, thus gained, was prized
more highly, studied more carefully, and put in practice more
conscientiously.
To the young minds, although thus engaged under diffi-
culties, in a comparatively uncultivated region of the country,
away from its high roads, it was, nevertheless, a grand time, full
of activity, glorious excitement, and high expectations.
Dr. J. H. Pulte soon joined the noble band of homoeopathic
practitioners who had united themselves for mutual advance-
ment in knowledge, under the name of Homœopathic Society of
Northampton County; this was the first one of the kind on this
continent, where they now are numbered, thanks be to God, by
the hundreds.
C
It was no child's play, in those days of bad roads and great
distances, to belong to a Society so widely spread over the
country, and do justice to its requirements by attending regularly
its monthly meetings, and by being prepared to give, as well as
to receive, instruction. But a holy zeal seemed to possess all the
members, since they seldom were found missing at the friendly
gatherings; there were old, gray-haired gentlemen, such as Dr.
Freytag, of Bethlehem; they seemed to grow young again; so
active, so resolute were they in their devotions to the new
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
523
science; whlie the young physicians present seemed to grow
bolder and more mature in their aspirations. It augured well
for the future of Homoeopathy in this country, that its beginning
in the Northampton Society met with such holy, disinterested
love and zeal; that its members were only conscious of one
thought, to labor for the welfare of mankind, and the honor of
the science whose principle had become their guiding star. The
future historian of Homoeopathy in America must not forget the
names of the members of the Northampton County Society; they
richly deserve to be mentioned; some of them may be named
here. There was Dr. William Wesselhoft, of Bath; Dr. Frey-
tag, of Bethlehem; Dr. John Romig, of Allentown; Dr. Det-
willer, of Easton; Dr. Wolford, Dr. Reichhelm, Dr. Bauer,
and others; besides a number of well-informed clergymen, who
were enthusiastically devoted to the good work, such as Rev.
Messrs. Becker, Helfrich, and Waage.
But the greatest accession to the society was made when Dr.
C. Hering, of Philadelphia, joined its number, and took up his
residence in Allentown, to preside over the Academy, which had
been formed by the exertions of this small but enthusiastic band
of Hahnemann's disciples.
Dr. Pulte recognized at once in Dr. Hering the man of genius,
and submitted cheerfully to the moulding influence which such
a mind naturally would have over others, especially younger
ones. He had assisted to found the Academy; he now labored
to the best of his ability to sustain its reputation and prosperity.
Besides attending to the numerous meetings for scientific and
other purposes, frequent occasions would offer where public ad-
dresses had to be delivered, or poems to be recited; he never
shrunk from any work thus laid out for him.
At one time the news arrived at the college of the sudden
demise of Professor Schoenlein, the greatest pathologist of the
age, the friend of Dr. Hering, and the revered teacher of several
of the members of the Society. Forthwith the idea was promul-
gated and put into execution, of solemnizing the departure of
this shining light, even although belonging to Allopathy, by a
public demonstration, oration, etc.; thus to show publicly the
loyalty to science which, inherent in the head of the academy,
(Dr. Hering), penetrated the whole body.
On this occasion Dr. Pulte contributed the poem in German.
524
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
I
The ceremony was sincerely performed, but, as it proved
afterward, without cause; the announcement of Schoenlein's
death had been premature. As he is now, however, really
dead, the ode may yet be considered a fitting tribute to the
memory of this great thinker and physician.
In all his connections with the Academy, as well as with the
Society, Dr. Pulte regretted very much that he could not con-
tribute his share to the provings of new remedies. His own sys-
tem not being susceptible enough to elicit symptoms, he had to
leave this means of increasing the stock of knowledge to others,
and confine himself to exertions in the field of practice, by the
side of the sick, where he found ample scope for the use of any
talent he might possess.
Thus passed six years of great activity of body and mind, giv-
ing and receiving instruction, healing the sick, but never relin-
quishing the intention of joining his brother in St. Louis and
bringing him into the light of the new doctrine. But he did not
carry his intention into execution until the Academy was dis-
solved. The closing of this Institution at that time deeply dis-
tressed the friends of Homœopathy; however, it may be consid-
ered to have been a fortunate event, as thereby the knowledge
of Homœopathy was spread more rapidly all over the country.
The Pentecost for the adherents of this new but persecuted faith
had not arrived; its disciples, so carefully gathered, so closely
kept together thus far, had to be scattered and sent abroad to
preach the new gospel of the healing art throughout larger do-
mains and dominions. Now we can realize by glorious results
the necessity of this Allentown exodus; the Homœopathy of this
whole country received its zeal and baptism from an intensely
ardent focus or center, which, when exploding, threw its truth-
loving burning sparks all over the country at once, producing
hundreds of Allentowns, each more extensive than the first. In
this respect the European progress of Homoeopathy has been far
different; solitary men here and there would arise, but the whole
movement has been slower and less extensive. Dr. Hering went
to Philadelphia, Dr. Reichhelm to Pittsburg, Dr. Romig to
Baltimore, and others to other cities and countries; Dr. Pulte took
up his march again westward to St. Louis, where he intended to
go six years previous. But how differently prepared he now was
Qu
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
525
for the contest in that wide region! In these six years of prepar-
ation he had been filled with new ideas, worthy the attention of
the greatest minds; he had something to offer to the growing
countries beyond the Alleghanies, and was, perhaps on that ac-
count, to them a real acquisition; at least he was willing to im-
part the blessings of the new science without hindrance or stint.
He traveled in company with an intelligent Englishman, Ed-
ward Giles, whom he made a convert to Homoeopathy, theoreti-
cally, but who wanted practical proof, if it could be had. When
on the steamer from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, Dr. Pulte saw for
the first time his future partner for life, and determined upon
that union which nothing but death should sever. He tarried in
Cincinnati to give his friend Giles an opportunity of witnessing
cures by homoeopathic remedies. For that purpose he opened a
private dispensary, where soon the sick children of the poorer
classes congregated to get relief. It was high summer, and
summer complaints prevailed. Mr. Giles was astonished at the
speedy and easy cures, and so it seems were those who were
more nearly concerned by them; the poorer classes had told the
richer, and these latter soon demanded help from the physician
who had cured the former. Not six weeks had elapsed before
Dr. Pulte was in full practice in Cincinnati; and when his friend
reminded him to go to St. Louis, he was obliged to tell him
he could not, on account of the numerous engagements to ful-
fill; thus he established himself, or rather was established in
spite of himself, in Cincinnati, the Metropolis of the West; this
was in the summer of 1840.
In the meantime he had not forgotten the engagements of his
heart, and in the autumn of the same year he was united in
marriage to Miss Mary Jane Rollins, of Pittsburg, a lady who
soon shared his enthusiasm for the extension and honor of
Homœopathy, and has ever since been very active in promoting
the former and sustaining the latter, by assisting her husband
even in his professional duties.
In 1846 he published his work on history, in German, enti-
tled, "Organon of the History of the World" (Organon der
Weltgeschichte). In it he not merely attempted a philosophy
of history, but an elevation of history to the rank of one of the
natural sciences; he showed the reign of law and order on the
historic fields, where chance had ruled before. Although the
526
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
first ideas in this respect had been long maturing in his mind,
while endeavoring to find a God in history, ruling by fixed laws,
yet it was only by his closer acquaintance with Homoeopathy
that these ideas began to assume form and character; in honor
to Hahnemann, therefore, he adopted for his work the title
"Organon" and the motto "Aude Sapere." It was presented to
leading historians here and abroad, and gained for the author
the esteem and friendship of such men as Humboldt, Guizot,
Schelling, Chevalier Bunsen, Lepsius, William Cullen Bryant;
to the latter gentleman he sent a copy prefaced with a stanza
given in the original German, showing in its last line the object.
of the work.
When, in 1848, he visited Europe to present to the interested
Governments a well-matured plan of his own for carrying the
telegraph around the world, via Bering's Straits or the Aleutian
Islands to Asia, and thence to Europe, he met with a ready wel-
come from these savants, and Humboldt especially favored him
with his personal interest in the important proposal, and prom-
ised to do everything in his power to foster the project, by the
influence he had personally with the Emperor Nicholas of Rus-
sia; but the subsequent Hungarian war frustrated the design at
that time, although Congress had the memorial of Dr. Pulte.
sent to the Senate of the United States, through the agency of
Governor Chase, then Senator from Ohio, printed and ready for
debate. The same project with the same detailed data was after-
ward taken up by Major Collins, and is now carried into effect.
To Dr. Pulte, however, belongs the honor or credit of having
been the first among men engaged in attempts to realize Puck's
grand achievement, to "put a girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes."
While in Europe he did not forget the interests of his beloved
science; wherever he tarried in the larger cities he was cordially
received by his professional brethren, and he now remembers
with delight the social and profitable intercourse he enjoyed
with most of the notables of our literature-such as Drysdale,
Epps, Laurie, Quin, Paul Wolf, Hartmann, Jahr, and others
equally distinguished, and, not least, Madame Hahnemann, the
renowned widow of the immortal founder of Homœopathy.
But he soon had to return to America, as the Asiatic cholera
made rapid strides toward the West. During its prevalence in
OF HOMEOPATHY.
527
Cincinnati, in 1849, Dr. Pulte had the satisfaction to see the
homoeopathic treatment triumphant beyond any other; through
his exertions and counsel, an uniform prophylactic and curative
system was recommended to the Homœopathic Society, and gen-
erally adopted and followed by the people, which, under God,
saved thousands of lives.
Homœopathy, after this memorable trial of 1849, was firmly
established in the whole West and South, where cities and
country received homoeopathic physicians, mostly converts from
the old system, by the score, more or less through the agency
and influence of Dr. Pulte. One of the most eventful conver-
sions was that of Dr. Davis, of Natchez, a very eminent South-
ern practitioner; hundreds of others, equally successful, date
their conversion from the year 1849, witnessing the splendid re-
sults of the homoeopathic treatment of Asiatic cholera in Cincin-
nati.
"Do-
Shortly afterward, in 1850, he published his work on
mestic Practice." Its arrangement was entirely original with
him, and the book seems to have pleased the public so well that
up to this time no book of a similar size and import, in the
homœopathic literature, has had such a circulation throughout
the world as this. It was reprinted in London, where a great
number of editions appeared for England and its colonies; it was
translated into Spanish, and serves as the principal work in that
line, for Cuba and the South American Republics.* In this wide
range of distribution above a hundred thousand copies now cir-
culate as comforters in distress and silent but potent missionaries
* Advertisement to the Spanish Edition by the Publisher.-"The number
of the friends of Homœopathy being constantly on the increase, not only
among the medical profession, but to a still greater extent among the peo-
ple, it became necessary to provide a manual, which would, in a clear and
intelligible mauner, place within the reach of the latter the treatment best
adapted to the cure of their ailments. When endeavoring to select, with
the assistance of a competent person, the work most suitable to the pur-
pose, from the large number of publications of this class now extant, the
complete Treatise of Domestic Homoeopathy, by J. H. Pulte, M. D., Cin-
cinnati, could not well escape our attention. This excellent work contains
the most useful and necessary elements of anatomy and physiology, hygiene
and hydropathy-the two latter being treated as handmaids to Homo-
opathy, so that these, especially the last, may be effective auxiliaries of the
doctrine of Hahnemann.
Havana, April 1, 1859.
(C
ANDREAS GRAUPERA.”
}
528
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in the cause of Homoeopathy. Though dozens of imitations of
this work have from time to time been issued, none have as yet
been able to supersede its popularity.
In 1852 he commenced, jointly with Dr. H. P. Gatchell, the
publication of a monthly, called the American Magazine of
Homeopathy and Hydropathy. It had a large circulation, and
was continued for the first two years as a monthly; in the third
year it appeared as a quarterly, with Dr. C. D. Williams as co-
editor. After that year it was discontinued, as the editors had
left the place of its publication; it also was evident that the
Magazine had fulfilled its mission by having combatted and dis-
pelled that spirit of illiberality and dogmatism which, before its
appearance, threatened to overwhelm the homoeopathic ranks.
Its tendency was for the liberality of individual opinion, making
the bond of union for the fraternity as large as possible; it
stoutly insisted on the truth that any one who acknowledges
the law Similia Similibus as a law of cure, must be consid-
ered a friend and brother, if he differ ever so widely from the
views of others in carrying into practice this all-essential law.
This position of affairs in our midst has been gained, and the
Magazine did good service to bring about such a desirable re-
sult.
During this time (1852) Dr. Pulte accepted and filled the chair
of clinical medicine in the Homœopathic College of Cleveland,
and afterward that of obstetrics in the same Institution. This
position gave occasion for public addresses and introductories.
In one of these, called the "Science of Medicine," he gave a
condensed view of his ideas of what should constitute the science
of medicine, in contradistinction to what may be termed a system
of medicine. He there already pointed to the cell as the real
starting-point of the pathological development; it may be said
that here already were indicated the principal features of that
pathological edifice which Virchow afterward erected into his
famous cellular theory. But, more than this celebrated micro-
scopist was able to do, it hinted at or traced out the therapeuti-
cal outlines of a comprehensive, real science of medicine, by com-
bining. in a lawful, natural union, all the different therapeutical
methods hitherto in vogue, and assigning to each its legitimate
place according to the two great laws of development which gov-
ern the smallest cell as well as the largest bodies-viz., the law
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
529
of the center which organizes and crystallizes (the homeopathic
method performs under this law), and the law of the periphery
which dissolves or expands on the line of the tangent (the alter-
ative method, the contra stimulus, hydropathy and movement,
cure, etc., perform under this law). He has not relinquished
the farther elaboration of these ideas, and is still engaged in col-
lecting such material as will facilitate this great work. In the
meantime the labors of other minds show a similar direction; he
mentions only those of Virchow, of allopathic, and Von Grau-
vogl's, of homoeopathic celebrity, both so divergent, apparently,
yet so closely allied in tendency.
In 1853, while lecturing on obstetrics, Dr. Pulte conceived the
idea of preparing for the press a work for popular use on the dis-
eases of women; the " Woman's Medical Guide" appeared in
Cincinnati in 1853.* It gained rapidly a great popularity in
this country and England, and was translated into Spanish in
Havana, where it enjoys an equally great popularity; thousands
of copies are in circulation in England, the United States, and
the South American Republics.
When diphtheria made its appearance as an epidemic, he em-
bodied his experiences and reflections on this important disease
and its successful treatment in a monograph which had an ex-
tensive circulation throughout the West.
In 1855, the centenary year of Hahnemann's birth, Dr. Pulte
was appointed to deliver the annual address before the American
Institute of Homoeopathy, which that year met in Buffalo, N. Y.
He accommodated his oration to the festal character of the year,
which proved to be to him one of the most pleasing duties per-
formed in his life. He looked and does yet look-upon it as
a labor of love, sweet and fragrant even in remembrance.
For years his whole attention was attracted by the wonderful
discoveries of Kirchoff and Bunsen, not merely because spectral
*The late lamented Dr. B. F. Joslin, of New York, writes as follows
about this work: "Woman's Medical Guide,' by Dr. Pulte, beautifully
and correctly depicts her physical and moral development in the different
stages and relations of life, and is replete with excellent directions for the
management of herself and offspring. The book is highly creditable to its
author, as a scholar, a philosopher, and a Christian; and is better calcu-
lated than any other, on the same subjects and within the same compass, to
remove many false notions and pernicious practices which prevail in so-
ciety."
530
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
analysis illumines the visible universe, and makes it transparent
to the eye of the philosopher, but especially because, while it
elucidates the law governing the newly discovered appearances,
it makes it almost evident that its identity with the homoeo-
pathic law, Similia similibus is incontestibly true, and the
knowledge of this relationship may yet lead to greater dis-
closures.
For many years he was in active practice in Cincinnati, where
he was highly honored and respected. In 1872 a college was
founded in Cincinnati, which was named for him, Pulte College.
In the fall of the year he delivered his last course of lectures on
clinical medicine, which were listened to with great interest. In
1873 a severe illness led to his withdrawal from active practice.
A favorite maxim was that: "The height of all pleasure was an
increase of knowledge."
war.
Dr. Pulte was the first to advocate an income tax during the
He was also named for United States Minister to Austria
and endorsed by Hons. Bellamy Storer, Alphonse Taft, A. F.
Herr, Carl Shurz, B. Eggleston. W. S. Groesbech and other
prominent statesmen.
He entered into rest February 14, 1884, in the 73d year of his
age, succumbing to general debility, characterized chiefly by in-
ability to sleep or take food. He was a member of numerous
medical societies.
The following is from the American Homœopathic Observer:
At a meeting of the Cincinnati Homoeopathic Medical Society
the following was adopted:
Death's but a path that must be trod
If we would ever pass to God.-Parnell.
And God has, in His wisdom, seen fit to open the pathway to
our revered friend, Dr. Joseph H. Pulte.
Our deceased associate was a pioneer of Homœopathy west of
the Alleghanies. He was a thorough believer in his science and
an enthusiastic practitioner of it, and labored unremittingly to
spread its truth among the profession and public. He was kind
and gentle in his manner to all, full of sympathy for the sick,
and entirely unselfish, inviting many and welcoming all who
came to share his field of labor with him. He was emphatically
the friend of the young practitioner, and smoothed the way for
many a struggling beginner. His life was just, devoted to
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
531
science and good deeds. His death was that of a Christian and
Philosopher. Be it therefore:
Resolved, That we honor and cherish his memory, and that
assurance of our sympathy be sent Mrs. Pulte, his life-companion
and helpmeet.
J. P. GEPPERT, M. D.,
F. H. SCHELL, M. D.,
M. M. HOWELL, M. D.,
S. R. GEISER, M. D., Vice-President.
Committee.
H. W. HAWLEY, M. D., Secretary.
We shall ever hold in grateful remembrance our departed
friend. His great success in the treatment of Asiatic cholera, in
Cincinnati, thirty-five years ago, was the first thing that induced
us to examine the claims of Homoeopathy.
(Cleave's Biography, U. S. Med. Surg. Jour., vol. 3, No. 10.
Trans. Hom. Med. Soc. Penna., 1884. Med. Adv., vol. 14, p. 563.
Am. Hom. Obs., vol. 20, p. 430.
World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 709.
Hahn. Monthly, vol. 19, p. 226. N. E. Med. Gaz., vol. 19, p. 128.
Med. Couns., vol. 9, p. 35. Pamphlet reprint from U. S. Med.
Surg. Jour., with portrait. Trans. Am. Inst. Hom., 1884.)
QUADRI. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832 and on
the Quin list of 1834, at which time he was located at Naples.
QUARANTA, CAVALIERE HERNANDO. Was a
distinguished pioneer of Naples. Dadea says that while Romani
was having translated the "Materia Medica Pura," Cavaliere
Hernardo Quaranta, a distinguished and able professor of arch-
æology in the University of Naples, published in 1824 a very
accurate translation of the "Organon." (World's Conven., vol.
2, p. 1069.)
QUEROL, VICENTE. The Criterio Medico for Oct. 10,
1870, notices the death of Dr. Querol of Cuba. He belonged
to the Hahnemann Society of Madrid, and had received the
Cross of Commander of the Order of Charles III.
Dr. Querol resided in Seville, and was among the first Spanish
converts to Homœopathy. He removed to Madrid in 1834,
with the object of treating the epidemic of cholera which then
raged there by the new system. He translated the "Clinica" of
Beauvoais de Sangratien, which he left incomplete, and he also
532
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
translated the ((
Organon." (El Criterio Medico, vol. 11, p.
World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 323.)
455.
QUIN, FREDERICK HERVEY FOSTER. To Dr. Quin
is due the honor of having introduced Homoeopathy into En-
gland. Addressing the British Homœopathic Society on August,
1846, Dr. Quin said: As early as 1834 I drew up the majority of
the laws which now compose the code. In 1837 I called a meet-
ing of homœopaths then practicing in London. It is easier to
imagine than describe the feelings which fill my breast on now
looking around me, when I recall to mind that in 1827 I stood
alone in England, the advocate of Hahnemann's doctrines and
the only practitioner of his system of medicine, the sole champion
of Homœopathy.
The British Journal contains the following: On the 24th of
November, 1878, last, there passed from among us one whose
name has been conspicuous in the annals of British Homoeopathy
for upwards of half a century. A native of Scotland, the subject
of this notice was born in the year 1799; at his death he was
therefore in his eightieth year. He took his degree at Edin-
burgh in 1820, and was fortunate in soon afterwards being
appointed physician to the late king of the Belgians, then Prince
Leopold, with whom he traveled on the Continent. We believe
he first became acquainted with Homoeopathy at Naples, and
was satisfied that it was a real advance in therapeutics. He is
commonly said to have introduced Homœopathy into England
in 1827, and no doubt he did practice the system during his
occasional visits to England, but he was not established in prac-
tice until several years later. Previous to his settlement in
England, Homoeopathy had been employed at our court, Queen
Adelaide having got over Dr. Stapf to treat her for some malady,
and Dr. Belluomini having enjoyed a limited amount of practice.
However, Stapf's flying visit and Belluomini's limited sphere of
operation exercised no influence on the spread of Homœopathy
in this country, and it was not till the advent of Dr. Quin,
shortly followed by Mr. Leaf's importation of Dr. Curie, that
Homœopathy can be said to have gained a footing among the
English public. For this purpose these two men were admirably
qualified each in his own way. Dr. Quin's large acquaintance
with members in the upper ranks of society, and his charming
OF HOMEOPATHY.
533
social manners, contributed greatly to the dissemination of hom-
œopathic treatment among the aristocracy, while Dr. Curie's
plodding zeal and painstaking devotion to dispensary and hos-
pital work brought Homœopathy to the knowledge of the lower
stratum of English life. Two such centres of proselytism soon
attracted a crowd of earnest medical inquirers, and it is a mooted
point which of these two pioneers of our system could claim the
largest number of converts. Dr. Quin survived his French con-
temporary by fourteen years, but his influence on Homœopathy
was not much felt during these years, as his poor health com-
pelled him to retire almost completely from any prominent par-
ticipation in the public acts of Homœopathy, and latterly forced
him to abandon his private practice.
Dr. Quin has not contributed largely to the literature of
Homœopathy during his long career.
His chief literary pro-
duction was a treatise in French on the homeopathic treatment
of cholera, which disease he had had an opportunity of treating
in 1831 at Tischnovitz in Moravia, having taken temporarily the
place of Dr. Gerstel, who had charge of the patients during Dr.
Gerstel's illness. He edited Hahnemann's "Fragmenta de Vir-
ibus" and the "Pharmacopoeia Homœopathica," and we believe
translated Hahnemann's "Reine Arzneimittellehre" (Materia
Medica) into English, and even had the translation printed, but
why he did not publish it we have never been able to learn.*
He contributed an interesting paper on "Neuralgia" to Vol. 4
of this journal. But though Dr. Quin did not contribute much
to the scientific development of Homœopathy, he was a great
power in its external advancement. In addition to making our
system known to a large circle of the most intellectual classes of
society, he was the founder of the British Homœopathic Society
and the chief promoter and supporter of the London Homœo-
pathic Hospital. We understand he has left the handsome
legacy of £200 to the society he was so long connected with as
president, and that the bulk of his fortune has been made over
to trustees on behalf of the hospital he was mainly instrumental
in establishing.
* Dr. Quinn published the first volume of the "Materia Medica" in 1840,
but when the volume was completed and printed, the whole impression was
destroyed by fire. There is said to be one copy in the British Museum.
(BRADFORD.)
534
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Dr. Quin's intercourse with his colleagues was always dis-
tinguished by frankness and cordiality, and his acts of kindness
towards many of the younger members of our profession are
remembered with gratitude. Like many others who have at-
tained eminence, he was very fond of having his own way, and
did not always bear opposition to his views with philosophic
calmness but on the whole, we must allow that his influence on
our homoeopathic world has been decidedly favorable, and it is
to the high standard that he set up that Homoeopathy is in-
debted in some degree to the present respectable and respected
position of its practitioners. Perhaps had he wielded the power
he at one time undoubtedly possessed over his colleagues in
order to induce them to take up a more aggressive attitude
towards the orthodox system, he might have gained for Hom-
œopathy a greater temporary eclat, but we doubt if such pushing
strategy would have been advantageous in the long run. We
believe he exercised a wise discretion in restraining the ardor
of his young colleagues, and always insisting that they should
keep well within the bounds of professional etiquette.
Perhaps Dr. Quin will be remembered by a wider circle as an
amusing companion and a wonderful story teller than as a
homœopathic doctor; for to the last almost he was a welcome
guest at the tables of some of the highest personages in the land
and, like Yorick, he invariably contrived to set their tables on
a roar."
64
A writer in the British Journal of Homœopathy for April, 1856,
says: Dr. Quin was the first practitioner of Homœopathy in
Great Britain who professed to treat patients according to that
method of practice only. He probably commenced practice as
a pure homœopathist in 1831 or 1832. We have been authori-
tatively informed that he introduced it as a mode of medical prac-
tice in 1827. He had, in fact, begun to investigate the subject
in 1825 or earlier. In 1826 he was at or near Coethen, with
Hahnemann, a favorite pupil of the sage. He learned German
on purpose to read the works written upon it, and not satisfied
with the results which he had witnessed here he went to Ger-
many, to the fountain head-Hahnemann-and became ac-
quainted with almost all the professors of Homoeopathy in the
different towns of Germany who practiced it. He practiced
there in 1827, but speaking of this practice Mr. F. J. Smith says
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
535
that he employed the remedies only at first in non-dangerous
cases; he never incurred the risk of bringing the system into
discredit with his patients or of affording his adversaries an op-
portunity of ascribing failure to this novel mode of practice when
it would have been due to the fatality of the disease. After he
returned from the Continent, in 1832 or 1833, he used Homo-
opathy exclusively.
The Monthly Hom. Review for Jan. 1, 1879, contains the fol-
lowing: In our issue of last month, having gone to press before
Dr. Quin breathed his last, we could only chronicle the bare fact
of his decease. We have now, however, leisure to notice in some
detail the career of this really remarkable man.
Frederick Foster Quin was born in the year 1799, and pursued
his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, where, in
1820, he took his degree of M. D., on the same day as did Dr.
Chapman, who died some ten years ago. He was by this time
well-known to the leaders of London political and social life, and
marked out as a man who promised to take a prominent position.
in his profession, hence, as soon as he had graduated, he was
chosen by Lord Liverpool to occupy the distinguished Govern-
ment position of physician to the exiled Emperor Napoleon at
St. Helena. But on the eve of starting from this country, the
news of the Emperor's death arrived, and he was at once chosen
by the Duchess of Devonshire to travel with her as her physician
in Italy, and saw much scientific and literary society. Dr. Quin,
whose knowledge of continental languages was perfect, had great
opportunities for seeing and enjoying the intercourse of the most
cultivated, as well as the most distinguished. His wonderful
gifts of conversation and wit soon made themselves apparent to
all with whom he came in contact, and Lady Acton told the
story of how in Naples at this time the young men used to ex-
claim, "Dieu, qu'il est amusant ce petit Quin." He remained
with the Duchess of Devonshire till her death in 1824, when he
was appointed physician to Prince Leopold, of Saxe-Coburg,
afterwards King of the Belgians, by whom he was regarded, not
simply as a physician, but as a friend. So high was the Prince's
opinion, not merely of Dr. Quin's professional skill, but of his
judgment and tact, that Baron Stockmar stated that had Prince
Leopold accepted the throne of Greece, it was his intention to
appoint Dr. Quin his Minister at the Court of St. James. No
536
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
better proof could be given of the social position Dr. Quin was
fitted to occupy, and of his discretion, judgment, and political
capacity, than the expression of such an intention. While at-
tendant on Prince Leopold, his attention was drawn to Homo-
opathy by the illness of one of the household. The case had
been given up by himself and other physicians, when to the
surprise of all, the patient recovered under the treatment of a
homoeopathic practitioner. This made such an impression on
Dr. Quin, that he resolved to look into and fully study this new
and much-abused system of therapeutics. If it requires a con-
siderable amount of moral courage at the present day to investi-
gate this subject openly and thoroughly, much more did it do so.
at this time.
When in London with the Prince, shortly after the occurrence
of this incident, Dr. Quin mentioned the subject of Homœopathy
to Dr. Johnson, who was at that time the editor of the Medico-
Chirurgical Review. Dr. Johnson urged him to continue his
enquiries into the new doctrine, and requested him to write an
article upon it for his Review. Dr. Quin did continue his en-
quiries, but when he returned to England with the Prince in
1827, convinced that Homoeopathy was true, and when he was
treating patients in London homoeopathically, Dr. Johnson's
request for an article was not renewed! It was in the year 1827
that Dr. Quin first practiced Homœopathy in England. He did
so, however, only when his appointment to Prince Leopold in-
volved his living in London, viz., during what is commonly
called "the season." Determined, however, to give his un-
divided attention to the study of the new system, he resigned his
position as physician to the Prince, and spent the greater portion
of two years in studying Homoeopathy under the tutorship of
Hahnemann, and with that enthusiasm, which was another trait
of his character, when once thoroughly convinced of the truth of
the new system, he became a devoted and admiring follower of
the great reformer in medicine. In 1831 the epidemic of cholera
was raging in Moravia whither Quin went to put into practice.
his new faith, and did so with signal success. He was attacked
himself by the disease, and this, with the hard work he had
gone through, so affected his health, that he returned to this
country in 1832, and now devoted himself to the practice of
Homœopathy, as the first and only representative of it in
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
537
England. The open adoption of Homœopathy, and public ad-
vocacy of its treatment by Quin at this early period, when the
system was violently abused, and the grossest ignorance of its
merits prevailed, when he had no one in the profession in this
country to back him up, and when in so doing he threw away,
one might say, the magnificent prospects of advancement to the
top of his profession, which lay before him, show in the strongest
light that force of character, that honesty, that truthfulness, that
energy, that fearlessness in the cause of truth, which character-
ized Quin throughout his life, and which, as much as his geni-
ality, won for him the position he ever after occupied. There
can be no doubt, that had it not been for his open confession of
Homoeopathy, with his position, his wide aristocratic connec-
tions, his cultivated manners, and social gifts, he would in a
short time have found himself the leading man in the medical
profession, and occupying those posts of honor to fill which is
the ambition of all young physicians. But all this weighed
lightly in the balance, when truth and honesty were in the op-
posite scale.
Well it was for Homeopathy that it had such an one to be its
sponsor. Had a man of no note or position adopted it, it
would have won its way by degrees, and slowly perhaps. But
with Quin to introduce it to England, it got a firm hold of the
highest grades of society first of all, and then permeated down-
wards to the middle classes. Quin's character and prospects
were sufficient to dispel from the mind of every one who knew
him the idea that he adopted Homœopathy from any other
motive than that which was inspired by a conviction of its truth.
From the first he resolved to maintain the highest professional
tone towards his opponents, and glad as they would have been
to have picked any hole, however small, in his conduct, not one
fault was ever found with him even by those who were most
bitter against him, while by many, whose good opinion was best
worth having, he was regarded with sincere respect, and even
friendship.
He was on terms of intimate friendship with such men as Mr.
Liston, Sir W. Fergusson, and Sir Charles Lococke, up till the
time of their death. An amusing story is told of the latter.
Meeting Quin one day in the street, "I have been treating a
patient of yours," said Sir Charles. "Indeed?" replied Quin.
538
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Yes, and cured him on your own method, too." "Indeed,"
rejoined Quin, quite interested, "what medicine did you give?”
"Nothing," was Sir Charles' chuckling reply. "Well, it is
curious," adds Quin, "that I have been treating a patient of
yours too, and I used your method." "Well," said Sir Charles,
"and what was the result?" "Dead," answered Quin, in glee
at having given his friend as good as he had got.
،
Men of lesser mind, on the other hand, treated Quin very
differently. A story, too good not to be related, as it is fact,
was told by himself of his relations with Dr. Paris, then and for
many years afterwards president of the Royal College of Physi-
cians. Quin was going to be put up for the Athenæum Club,
when Paris one day at the club, in the presence of some of
Quin's personal friends, used very strong and insulting language
in reference to him, threatening him to bring all his medical
friends up to blackball him. On being at once called upon to
apologize, he repeated his words, and refused. In those days,
duelling was of common occurrence. Next day, Lord C—————, a
personal friend of Quin's called on Dr. Paris, who, instead of
finding a patient, was shown in writing the words which he had
used the previous day. Lord C— requested Paris to apologize,
and on his refusing to do so, he was quietly asked to name a
friend. This Dr. Paris found himself obliged to do. His friend,
after an interview, insisted on Dr. Paris withdrawing all his
words, and made him apologize.
Dr. Quin's first residence in London was at 15, King Street,
St. James', from whence he removed to Stratford Place, and
thence to Arlington Street. In 1837, he conceived the idea of
forming the British Homoeopathic Society, but it was not till
1844 that all the laws and other arrangements were completed.
In that year, on Hannemann's birthday, three other homoeo-
paths, Mr. Cameron, Dr. Partridge, and Dr. Mayne, met at Dr.
Quin's house in Arlington Street (since used as the Turf Club),
and founded the British Homoeopathic Society, Dr. Quin being,
of course, the president. During the first few years of its exist-
ence, the Society met at Quin's house, every year adding to its
numbers, till the London Homœopathic Hospital was founded,
after which the Society met, and still meets, within the walls of
the hospital. The office of president, though filled up annually,
was held by Dr. Quin till his death, notwithstanding that for
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
539
years, owing to his failing health, he had been unable to be
present. Those who were members while Dr. Quin attended
regularly at the Society's meetings speak in glowing terms of
the capabilities he constantly displayed for the presidential
office, of his powers of summing up argument, of his tact and
acuteness in seeing the weak points in any speech, and of the
gentle, and even flattering terms in which he used to encourage
the utterances of the younger members.
His next pet project was the formation of a hospital. A large
association of laymen, numbering 1,300, some of them of the
highest rank, was formed for the purpose of spreading the doc-
trines of homoeopathy and enlisting the interest of the public.
The efforts of this association, with Dr. Quin as the soul and
life of it, resulted, in 1850, in the foundation of the London
Homœopathic Hospital. Dr. Quin himself collected an enor-
mous sum of money from his influential friends for its endow-
ment, and from his having initiated the idea of a hospital, and
having done so much to carry out his project, he must always
be regarded as its founder. It was first situated in Golden
Square, but during the cholera epidemic was converted into a
cholera hospital, and it was there that those remarkable results
were obtained which, although refused publication in the Blue
Book on the subject with the statistics of other hospitals, were
afterwards, at the instance of Parliament, incorporated in a sep-
arate Blue Book. The results of Dr. Macloughlin's inspection
of the hospital at this time led him to state in writing that, were
he himself attacked with cholera, he would be treated homoeo-
pathically.
After the cholera epidemic was over, the hospital was moved
to Great Ormond Street, where it now is. Dr. Quin's views as
to the hospital were very liberal and advanced. He wished it to
form not only a place for the reception of patients, but looked
forward to its being a field for clinical teaching. The full name
of the hospital at its institution was: "The London Homœopathic
Hospital and Medical School." The virulent feeling, however,
at that time, among the allopaths against homoeopathy was such
that the "school" arrangements after a time fell into abeyance,
until more recently revived in the shape of the London School
of Homœopathy. These two institutions-the Society and the
Hospital-Dr. Quin always looked upon as his children, and he
540
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
has shown, in the most large-hearted manner, this paternal
affection by bequeathing in his will £200 and his medical
library to the Society, and the whole of the rest of his property
(a few legacies excepted), amounting, we believe, to somewhere
about £17,000, to the Hospital.
We have as yet said nothing of Dr. Quin's private practice.
From the first it was most extensive, while his patients were
almost exclusively drawn from the very highest class of society.
From Arlington Street he moved to Mount Street, where his
health began to fail, and compelled him to retire to a consider-
able extent; so that from the time he left Mount Street
he never laid himself out for practice, albeit he continued
to see those patients who would consult no one but him-
self, seeing such an one but a few days before his last
illness. On leaving Mount Street, Lord Granville, who enter-
tained the warmest friendship and admiration for Dr. Quin,
invited him to live at his lordship's house in Bruton Street; after
residing there a short time, and during a very severe illness, he
removed to Belgrave Mansions; here he remained till his lease
expired. While looking for other quarters, the Duke of Edin-
burgh, then abroad, wrote to him, begging him to occupy apart-
ments at Clarence House. The Duke of Sutherland made a sim-
ilar offer of Stafford House for his use; he accepted the gracious
offer of the Duke of Edinburgh, and resided at Clarence House
till the Duke and Duchess returned to town, when, although
pressed to remain, he took a suit of rooms in Queen Anne's Man-
sions, where he died at the advanced age of seventy-nine. Dur-
ing his long career of practice, Dr. Quin was not merely the
fashionable physician. His perfect manners, his thorough
knowledge of human nature, his wonderful powers of conversa-
tion, anecdote, wit and humor, made him the pet of society, and
no dinner party, from that of the Prince of Wales downwards,
was considered complete without the presence of Dr. Quin.
But those who only saw him in the midst of rollicking fun, jokes,
and laughter, knew but one side of his character. He was not
merely an outsider, who was invited out for the sake of his wit
and conversation, but having mingled from his youth on the
most intimate terms in the social circles of the highest in the
land, he became their personal friend, was looked up to and re-
ferred to for his advice on the most delicate matters, and his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
541
opinion was always trusted for tact, sagacity, and truthfulness.
Of those who formed the society in which he lived, he was the
familiar, the confidential friend, which he never could have been
had not the serious side of his character come out as prominently
to those who knew him as did its lighter traits. In all his
sallies of wit he was never known to say anything of, or to any
one, which bore a sting, neither did his intimacy with the high-
est personages in the country, as in the case of men of smaller
minds, ever lead him to give up his professional and other
friends. He was always ready to dine with an old friend as with
royalty, and his ear was ever open to any request for advice or
help in difficulty, from what quarter soever it might come.
Ever since an operation which he had undergone while at
Lord Granville's house, he had been subject to severe attacks of
asthma, which so affected his health as to reduce a frame at first
plump, or even, we believe, burly, to one of great emaciation.
He was as well as usual, and able to dine out on the 12th and
14th of November, but on the 15th he was attacked by severe
bronchitis. His friend of long standing, Mr. Cameron, who had
daily visited him for months before, called in Dr. Hamilton in
consultation. They agreed in thinking that the end was at last
approaching; he became delirious, and finally insensible on the
24th, when he breathed his last. It may be mentioned that the
Prince of Wales visited him during his illness, and after his
death sent the following telegram to Mr. Cameron:
"The
Princess and myself are deeply grieved and distressed to hear
that our kind friend has passed away. Many friends will mourn
his loss, and he cannot have left a single enemy." Such a tribute
of esteem speaks volumes for the character of Dr. Quin, and we
believe we are right in stating that his loss as a friend is grieved
over by many of the highest in society, as well as by numerous
friends in less exalted spheres of life.
Dr. Quin, in the midst of his many engagements, was not idle
in furthering the cause of Homoeopathy, by literary work as well
as in other ways. In 1834 he edited the Homeopathic Pharma-
copoeia; later on he edited Hahnemann's Fragmenta de Viribus,
published a treatise in French on cholera, and in 1836 he, with
the assistance of Dr. Hamilton, translated the whole of the
Materia Medica Pura. This translation was printed, but, strange
542
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
to say, never published.* We understand that of the 500 copies
thrown off only one remains extant, and is in Dr. Quin's own
library. The premises of the printer were destroyed by fire, and
it is believed that the rest of the copies were burnt.
An accomplished physician, a brilliant wit, a genial and never
failing friend, one whose society has been sought after, whose
friendship has been prized by the most distinguished of men and
women during half a century of years, has passed away in Dr.
Quin. But while the memory of him will be long retained by a
large number of personal friends, the history of Homœopathy
with which, in this country at any rate, his name is so intimately
associated, the hospital which during life he so earnestly suc-
cored, and which by his will he has so munificently endowed,
and the Society of which he was the founder, in its earliest years
the assiduous director, and ever its honored president, will prove
to him a monument far more enduring.
The remains of Dr. Quin were interred at Kensal Green Ceme-
tery on the afternoon of the 28th of November. The Prince of
Wales was represented at the funeral by the Marquis of Hamil-
ton, the Princess of Wales by Lord Colville of Culross, the Duke
of Cambridge by Captain Mildmay, and the Duchess of Cam-
bridge by Colonel Greville. The British Homoeopathic Society
was represented by its vice-presidents, Drs. Hamilton and Hale,
Dr. Yeldham, Mr. Cameron, Dr. Mackintosh (Torquay), Drs.
Mackechnie, Black, Dudgeon, Mr. Ayerst, and several other
members; and the London Homoeopathic Hospital by Mr. Alan
Chambré, the Official Manager. There were also General Sir
Hastings Doyle, and Mr. Percy Doyle. Among the carriages
sent were those of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lismore, and
Lady Molesworth. Wreaths were sent by the Prince and
Princess of Wales, Lady Molesworth and Lady Lismore.
Dr. Quin, addressing the British Homoeopathic Society,
August 25, 1846, said: As early as 1834 I drew up the majority
of the laws which now compose the code. In 1837 I called a
meeting of homoeopathists then practicing in London. It is
easier to imagine than describe the feelings which fill my breast
on now looking around me, when I recall to mind that, in 1827,
I stood alone in England the advocate of Hahnemann's doc-
*But one volume was printed, and it was destroyed by fire. There is a
copy of the imprint in the British Museum (Br.).
OF HOMEOPATHY.
543
trines and the only practitioner of his system of medicine, the
sole champion of Homoeopathy.
A testimonial dinner was given to Dr. Quin on May 16, 1868,
at the London Coffee House, at which time many distinguished
men honored the old physician. After the death of Hahnemann
the office of President of Honor of the French Homœopathic
Society, that Hahnemann had borne for years, was conferred on
Dr. Quin.
Ι
Many interesting anecdotes of him may be found in Vol. I of
the "Annals of the British Homœopathic Society."
Until 1833 no notice was taken of Dr. Quin by the physicians
of the old school. But in that year the College of Physicians
addressed the following note to him: "We, the censors of the
Royal College of Physicians, London, having received informa-
tion that you are practicing physic within the city of London
and seven miles of the same, do hereby admonish you to desist
from so doing until you have been duly examined and licensed
thereto under the common seal of the said college, otherwise it
will be the duty of the said college to proceed against you for
the recovery of the penalties thereby incurred. The board for
examining persons who have the requisite qualifications is
holden at the college on the first Friday in every month." This
is dated January 4, 1833, and was signed by the censors. Dr.
Quin took no notice of it, so on February 1st another note was
sent as follows: Sir, I am desired by the Board of Censors of
the Royal College of Physicians to express their surprise that
they have received no answer to their letter of January 4, ad-
monishing you to desist from practicing physic until you have
been duly examined. The Censors' Board meets for the pur-
pose of examinations on the first Friday of every month. I am,
sir, you obedient servant, etc.”
""
Dr. Quin sent the following reply to this second note: "Feb-
ruary 3, 1833. Sir, Your letter of the 1st was only delivered to
me yesterday, and I hasten to beg that you will lay before the
censors of the Royal College of Physicians that it was out of no
disrespect to them that I did not answer their communication of
January 4th, ultimo, but because I did not conceive that a
document of the nature sent me required an answer. I have
now the honor to acknowledge its receipt, as well as that of your
letter containing a repetition of the information conveyed to me
3
544
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in your communication. I have the honor to be, etc. Frederic
F. Quin."
This was the end of the matter; the college did not reply to
the letter and there were never any penalties demanded. One
of the censors advised to let Dr. Quin alone, as Homœopathy
could not last more than two years.
A memoir of Dr. Quin was published shortly after his death
by Dr. Edward Hamilton.
In 1880 Dr. S. A. Jones related in the American Homeopathic
Observer an interesting reminiscence of Dr. Quin, as follows:
"Some time ago the writer received, through the kindness of
Dr. Richard Hughes, a copy of the Annals of the British Homœo-
pathic Society containing a Woodbury type of F. F. Quin, M.
D., the pioneer English Homœopath.
"It was at once added to a gallery of heroes comprising the de-
parted Russell, the living Drysdale, and the trenchant Dudgeon
-the men who were the British Journal of Homoeopathy at a
time when it needed men at the guns!
“Quin's face does not disappoint the one who knows something
of the early history of Homoeopathy in England, and who also
knows what prestige means in England.
To espouse a despised truth when Quin espoused it, to meet
the stony stare of a professional respectability that had grown
with the centuries, to boldly defy the vested privileges of an
august body with which might made right, needed a man of con-
victions, of force, of courage, inflexible purpose—and the Royal
College of Physicians foud all these in F. F. Quin; aye, not only
found but felt all these, and got out of the way of them with
such quasi dignity as is possible to towering respectabilities on
all occasions.
Indeed, Homœopathy has ever been fortunate in its pioneers.
Look at Quin, at Gram, at Hering, at Gray, each of them a man
who would exert an influence in any sphere, in any calling, giv-
ing dignity to it, commanding respect in it, being felt always
and everywhere. When such apprehend-take hold of—a truth,
platitudes and pretences must stand from under or it will require
a Pompeian exhumation to find them—for a truth of God finding
lodgment in the heart of a strong man is ever a moral ava-
lanche.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
545
But "the man I sing," is Dr. Quin; and as I write for the
younger men in our profession the older ones will pardon me if
I repeat much that is not new to them: they are the happy owners
of a full set of the British Journal and of The Annals; but shall
the heart cockle tickling facts buried in this literature not be
exhumed to rejoice our young men and young women, bless
God! in the doctorate?
Twenty years ago the 16th of last May some of Dr. Quin's
friends and colleagues gave him a dinner in recognition of his
services as the introducer of "Homœopathy into Great Britain,
France and other countries," and from Dr. Quin's speech on that
occasion I glean the facts to which I shall append the promised
reminiscence.
Said Dr. Quin in his charming after-dinner speech:-
"As early as the year 1832, so great and signal were the bene-
ficial results which followed the introduction of the practice of
Homœopathy among the society of London and so formidable did
the College of Physicians think its progress that the censors.
were directed to call upon me to appear before them, and sent
me an intimation that the Board was held on the first Friday of
every month, and that I must abstain from practicing in London
and within some miles of it, otherwise it would be the duty of
the College to proceed against me. Before even one such Fri-
day (the first Friday of the month) came round I received
another letter, dated the 1st of February, from the Register of
the College, by the desire of the consors, expressing their sur-
prise that I had taken no notice of their letter of the 4th of
January. To that letter, on the following day, I sent a reply,
stating that I had no wish or intention to act disrespectfully or
uncourteously towards the censors, conceiving that a document
such as I had received from them required no reply; but as they
seemed to think otherwise, I had now the honor of acknowl-
edging its receipt, as well as that of the Registrar, containing
the same information. From that day to the present I have
heard no more from the College of Physicians, nor have any
proceedings ever been taken against me."
Of course, Dr. Quin had friends at court; but his self-reliance
was based upon the inherent iniquity of a charter which enabled
the College of Physicians to be so insolvent with smaller (?) men
than they were, and doubtless Dr. Quin's gentlemanly contempt
for such a charter opened their eyes to its littleness.
546
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
He, however, 'heard no more from the College of Physi-
cians;" and we are quite ready to believe him, as one look from
a determined man awes all brutes.
"C
But, though Dr. Quin "heard no more from the College of
Physicians" in its corporate capacity, he learned the great-
heartedness of its members and fellows in their social capacity.
He shall tell the story in his own words:—
XXV.
When I lived abroad, I associated much with artists, literary
and scientific men, and some of them who had returned to
England were desirous that I should become a member of their
club (the Athenæum). A physician of eminence (afterwards
President of the College of Physicians) entered the library a few
nights before the election, and expressed his horror and indigna-
tion on seeing my name on the list of candidates for election,
calling me an imposter, and indulging in other terms of abuse;
and so active was he in his opposition to my admission that on
the night of election some friends counted forty physicians who
came to ballot from a meeting of the College of Physicians held
that night, and the result of the ballot was forty-four black
balls; so that he (Dr. Quin) had the signal honour of being re-
jected as a member of that club by the largest number of black
balls on record. This was deemed by myself and my friends one
of those occasions when it became necessary to show that such
language as that indulged in by the physician in question could
not be allowed to pass with impunity, and a friend was sent to
demand an immediate retraction of the unwarrantable and offen-
sive expressions, or the alternative used in those days among
gentlemen. A correspondence took place, which ended in an
apology and an explanation that the terms were not used against
me personally, but applied to the system.
The reader has observed how modestly this episode is nar-
rated; it shows all the quiet, self possession of the gentleman.
I will now make it evident that Dr. Quin's statement was toned
down by him.
On the morning of September 13th, 1875, I had a conversation
with an English gentleman concerning the early days of Homo-
opathy in London, and in which, I may add, he played a very
*Annals and Trans. of the British Hom. Society, vol 1, Appendix, page
""*
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
547
important part. On the evening of the same day I received
from him the following letter:
107 FOURTH Av., Sept. 13, 1875.
DEAR DOCTOR:-As you took some interest in what I told
you this morning about the quarrel between Drs. Quin and
Paris, I thought you might like to have the facts, as I recall
them, in writing..
Dr. Quin had been proposed for election as a member of the
Athenæum Club in London, and the book with his name in-
scribed with that of his nominator, lay, at the beginning of my
story, on the table of the club reading-room for the inspection of
members.
My old friend, Mr. Uwins, was standing near, when Dr. Paris,
the then President of the Royal College of Physicians, came in,
and walking pompously up to the table read out aloud the name
of Frederic Foster Quin, M. D. Turning to the members
around, he said, in a scornful voice, A pretty pass we have
come to when quacks and adventurers are proposed as members
of this club. I cannot believe, however, that any one else than
the nominator of this person would have the hardihood to sub-
scribe his name in assent to such a proposal. Mr. Uwins in-
stantly stepped forward, and having signed his name, turned to
the would-be dictator and said, Dr. Paris, I for one am glad to
second the nomination of my friend Dr. Quin; to whom I shall
take care to report the epithets you have been pleased to apply
to him.
The following day was appointed for the election of new mem-
bers, and Dr. Paris, with a numerous following of college men,
appeared to black-ball the obnoxious Homœopath. This was
easy work, and everything seemed to prosper with the guardians
of
Scientific Medicine." But alas! there was another to-
morrow, on the morning of which Dr. Paris was waited upon by
Lord Clarence Paget (a son of the Marquis of Anglesey, and an
officer in the "Guards") on behalf of his friend, Dr. Quin His
message was a brief one-most injurious epithets had been ap-
plied to Dr. Quin, altogether unwarranted; and the offender had
had the alternative of a written retraction and apology, to be
dictated by the guardsman and duly signed in his presence, or
to justify his language with pistols at twelve paces.
Paris blustered a little at first, but he soon found that if he did
"
548
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
not fight Quin he would have to fight Lord Paget, who would
be insulted at being told that the friend and physician whom he
represented was no fit antagonist for an allopathic physician So
Dr. P. submitted, and signed a complete retraction and somewhat
abject apology, which Dr. Quin, when I was in London, kept
amongst his curiosities.
Sincerely yours,
*
*
*
I do not feel at liberty to give the writer's name, but it can be
found, in very good company, on page 22 of the first volume of
the "Annals of the British Homoeopathic Society," and his well-
known intimacy with Dr. Quin and Thomas Uwins, R. A., are
sufficient guarantee for the authenticity of this statement. The
lapse of years will account for a few minor discrepancies between
himself and Dr. Quin.
The very respectable, "regular" bully whom Dr. Quin
obliged to eat the leek is known in medical history as J. A. Paris,
M. D., Cantab., F. R. S., Fellow and President of the Royal
College of Physicians, of London, and late Senior Physician to
the Westminster Hospital; and when one imagines the very
respectable pomposity shaking in the presence of the "Guards-
man," it is indeed ludicrous. Plumbum, crude, is the simili-
mum in all such cases.
S. A. JONES.
(Brit. Jour.l. Hom., vol. 14, p. 191; vol. 37, p. 109. Monthly
Hom. Rev., vol. 23, p. 44. Kleinert, pp. 166, 374. Annals Brit.
Hom. Soc., vol. 1. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 64, etc. World's Conv., vol.
2, pp. 96, 122. Am. Hom. Obs., vol. 17, p. 602. Med. Adv.,
vol. 6, p. 548. Rev. Hom. Belge., vol. 4. p. 376; vol. 5, p. 376.
El Crit. Medico., vol. 19, p. 574. Hom. Militante., vol. 2, p. 171.)
RABATTA. Quin in the list of 1835 locates this man as a
practitioner of Homœopathy at Fabriano, Italy.
RAMPAL. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at
Marseilles.
RAPOU (PERE). October 5, 1857. Rapou, pere, died at
Lyons at the age of 77 years. Dr. Rapou was a practitioner in
Lyons and his name appears on Quin's List of 1834. He, with
his son, traveled extensively, and the son wrote a very entertain-
ing history of their travels. (Allg. hom. Zeit., Vol. 55. p. 64.)
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
549
RAU, GOTTLIEB MARTIN WILHELM LUDWIG.
Dr. Rau was born on 3d of October, 1779, at Erlangen, where
his father, Dr. Johann Wilhelm Rau, was located as professor of
theology and at the same time as ministering clergyman. He
was so far educated by private instruction that in his thirteenth
year he could enter the second class in the Gymnasium (High-
school) of his native city. With Easter, in the year 1797, he
began, in accordance with an early developed inclination, the
study of medicine. Under Loschge, Hildebrandt, Wendt and
Schreber, he pursued his studies with such zeal that he received
his diploma already in the fall of 1800, after having passed
through his examinations with distinguished honor, having
publicly defended his inaugural address: "Observationes ad
pyretologiam Reichianam." In the following years he formally
entered on the office of Academic Instructor by defending a
second dissertation, "De acids benzoics memorabilia quædam;"
but he did not actually pursue the academic vocation, as he soon
afterwards followed a call to Schlitz, where the Count von Goetz
appointed him as physician in ordinary as well as town physi-
cian. The acceptance of this position, which early transferred
him into practical life, decided his future career. Later on he
frequently regretted having given up the academic career, for
which he retained a preference all his lifetime. His active
scientific mind was never, however, crushed by the practical
work of his profession, but it received from it a definite practical
direction. With great conscientiousness Rau used the often scanty
leisure allowed to him, not only for his further culture, but he,
early in his life, attempted literary work, in which his peculiar
clearness of perception and presentation was of great assistance
to him. His former occupation with belles lettres had a very
marked influence on the precision and symmetry of style per-
ceptible in all his writings.
Besides internal medication, he cultivated in his earlier years
especially obstetrics, in the practice of which he was distin-
guished as well by his due regard to the activity of nature as
by his technical dexterity, skill, resolution and determination.
At a time when few scientifically educated physicians devoted
themselves by preference to this department, it was a natural
consequence that he came into an extended obstetrical practice,
which extended far beyond the limits of his district. His book
550
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
on "Obstetrics," which appeared in the year 1807, and was
adopted as manual in the Obstetrical Institution at that place
and also extensively used elsewhere, supplied what had been a
longfelt want. Of no less use in a more extensive circle
was his work published in the same year," Directions for Making
Suitable Sanitary Reports for the Use of Thinking Laymen;"
though this work, of course, in the nature of things, could not
lay any claim to scientific value. Beside these purely practical
departments, he occupied himself by predilection with the
sciences, the progress in which riveted his attention even to the
last period of his activity. The only work published by him in
this department is the second part of Schlez's "Naturges-
chichte," containing botany and mineralogy; this is given in a
popular presentation, indeed, but is interwoven with many
peculiar views.
In the year 1813 he was appointed family physician of Baron
v. Riedel, and at the same time head physician in Lauterbach,
the province of Upper Hessia. Though his sphere of activity
here remained very similar to to his former one, it nevertheless
became considerably more extensive, and it can only be ascribed
to his very vigorous constitution that Rau endured the great
hardships of an extended practice in a district which in winter
is accessible in many places only at the risk of life, and this
without any ill consequences. During the war the hardships of
the practice were exceedingly increased as the treatment of all
the typhus patients, in a large and very populous district, fell on
him as the sole physician. At this occasion he distinguished
himself, not only by his indefatigable activity, but also by his
peculiar success in his practice, and numberless patients at that
time owed him their life. It frequently happened at that time
that he was asked by outside physicians to communicate to them
his method of cure, which soon caused a great diminution in the
mortality in other districts. Convinced of the ill-effects of
the stimulative method, he treated the war typhus of that t me
antiplogistically, frequently applied cold, and found an almost
specific effect from calomel. Only after the turgidity had been
removed, he cautiously commenced with excitative remedies,
among which Valeriana and Arnica especially proved their great
virtue. The results of these observations he preserved later on
in an extended treatise on the treatment of typhus in the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
551
Clinical Annals of Heidelberg, partly also in his monograph on
"Nervous Fevers." In the year 1821 he published his mono-
graph on "Piles," on which he had labored for many years with
the most assiduous industry. This treatise recommended him
to the medical public, not only as a learned physician, but
especially also as a good observer. As a recognition of his
manifold merits, he received in the same year from his Royal
Highness, the Archduke Louis I, the appointment of Aulic
Counsellor, and in the fall of 1824 he was appointed as Chief
Physician in Giessen.
He always looked for salvation in medicine through a
discriminating, rational empiricism, and was intimately ac-
quainted with the history of this science, the knowledge of which
is largely founded on the study of the original sources; this ex-
plains his predilection for the older literature. He also dili-
gently attended to everything new in medicine and in science in
general. Being a determined opponent of all merely theoretical
swindles, he distinguished himself in practice as an eclectic in the
choice of curative methods and remedies. Long before he gave
in his adherence to the homoeopathic curative method he had
banished the motley medicinal mixtures from his practice, being
convinced that a more exact knowledge of the effects of reme-
dies, which is above all things essential, can only be obtained.
by simplifying the prescriptions. Owing to his exact, practical
penetration, he often succeeded in a surprising manner in over-
coming diseases apparently most complicated by a most simple
procedure. In his treatment he gave to the expectative method
a prominent place, and with rare penetration knew how to appre-
ciate the activities of nature, while in the proper place he would
insist with resolution and penetration on incisive measures.
His principle of never proceeding without indication he carried
through undeviatingly and most conscientiously, and in doubt-
ful cases he would prefer to let nature have her way undisturbed,
until after repeated observations, a definite indication manifested
itself.
Starting from the fundamental position, that by far the greater
part of diseases spring from a dynamic disharmony, especially
of the nervous system, he made a comparatively rare use of the
evacuating method, and had least use for the humoral pathology.
In Brown's system, which he never adopted, he especially found
552
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
fault with the generalization of diseases with respect to quantity
with the neglect to quality. As little was he enamored of natural
philosophy, although he did full justice to many ingenious views
of this school as attempts toward the explanation of causes.
Generally speaking, he was in full harmony with the maxim of
Kurt Spreugel, that medicine loses by any junction with scho-
lastic philosophy and can only gain by cultivating the study of
experiences. Familiar with most philosophic systems, he had a
great predilection for Kant, whose "Critique of Pure Reason”
he studied repeatedly and even within a half year of his decease
as a recreation, while he was not at all affected by Hegel, and
openly confessed that he could not agree with his system.
Even many years before be became acquainted with Hahne-
mann's teachings. he said to a colleague who was a good friend
of his that medicine must reach a point where it shall treat all
diseases specifically. Till this state should be reached, however,
we could chiefly in our practice expect to be benefited by a
careful development of the excitative theory, though its present
form did not at all satisfy him. This declaration of Rau we must
make especially prominent in this biographic sketch, as it satis-
factorily explains the later direction of the scientific develop-
ment of Rau. This also proves again, that in the progress of
science, the same fundamental views may be prepared with
various persons, in which case the final priority of utterance
and of mating the idea frequently only depends on casual ex-
ternal excitations.
As Rau was thus akin in his ideas he felt himself necessarily
attracted by the teachings of Hahnemann, although he had
reached through a different and more scientific path a similar
position to that from which Hahnemann started out empirically.
Not without a great distrust as to the diminutive doses, Rau de-
termined after twenty-two years' practice of medicine, and being
familiar with its excellences and its defects, to put Hahnemann's
method to the test. This he first did in ailments involving no
danger afterward. Being encouraged by the successful results, he
also applied it in serious maladies. How far he was, however,
from blindly following Hahnemann is satisfactorily shown by
his first homoeopathic work: "Concerning the value of the
homœopathic curative method." In this work he examined the
leading maxims of Hahnemann's teachings with critical acumen
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
553
and frankly exposed various imperfections and one-sided de-
velopments, but defended the homoeopathic law of cure against
the manifold attacks made, and endeavored to show its scientific
foundation. It is indubitable that this work has much con-
tributed to gain for Homœopathy a wider acceptance, as the
attention of many was first called to that teaching by this work
and in consequence many gave it a trial in their clinical work.
Even the opponents had to recognize this endeavor to give to
Homœopathy a scientific basis, and to acknowledge, at least, that
Rau appeared as its zealous advocate from full conviction. This
conviction in him was so immovable that nothing could turn
him from a path which he saw led to the goal. Seizing upon
the culture of the specific healing art as his life's task, he became
not, indeed, totally estranged from the other methods of healing-
and even in practice applied them in many cases but theoretic,
ally he chiefly endeavored to make them tributary to Home-
opathy. In his investigations and observations, illusions may
have found a place, since even the most honest investigator is
never quite exempt from them; but he was at all events uni-
formly guided by nothing but the most sincere search for truth.
In a series of later writings he endeavored with great persever-
ance and consistency to reach the goal he set for himself, though
he did not think his task wholly completed even by his last
work: "The Organon of Specific Therapy." Much might yet
have been expected of him if his restless activity had not reached
too early a termination. But he did much through enlarging
Homœopathy as an art, as also by purifying it from many errors,
as well as by serving as a mediator between extremes which
threatened its disintegration. But doubtless his greatest service
has been through his endeavors of bringing the new doctrine
into harmony with the laws of nature and of life. Through this
he assisted in securing to it a worthy position among the other
curative methods, and in freeing it from the reproach of being
unscientific.
Frank in his demeanor, definite and clear in his expressions,
Rau, even by his external appearance, gained confidence, which
became permanent through his kindliness, sympathy and inde-
fatigable attention. Without respect of persons, he gave to each
patient his full attention; he was especially a friend of the poor,
who in him lose a great support. As town physician he dis-
554
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
tinguished himself by the greatest punctuality, love of order and
conscientiousness in the conduct of his office. Skillful in all the
duties pertaining to his office, quickly seizing upon even the
most intricate matters from the right point of view, he possessed
the rare gift of presenting in succinct brevity the most important
subjects in an exhaustive and clear manner. His reports and
opinions, which he never published, were always regarded by
the superior authorities as models. In the year 1839 he received
in recognition of his many years' services from his Royal High-
ness, the Grand Duke Ludwig I, the insignia of the Hessian
Domestic Order of the first rank.
Of a lively temperament, and gifted with an extremely vigor-
ous constitution, he was little troubled with diseases. In the
first years of his practice, in consequence of a fall from his horse,
he suffered from hematemesis, which later on became accom-
panied with very considerable tightness of the chest, with such
violent anguish that for weeks he had to keep his bed. The
suppositious dropsy of the heart, which had been diagnosed also
by another physician, disappeared, however, when unexpected
hemorrhoidal troubles appeared. In subsequent ailments, how-
ever, there appeared every time irregularities in the beat of the
heart and of the pulse, with a passing depression of mood, with-
out, however, ever causing serious trouble. Since several years
he was subject almost every winter to violent catarrh of the
chest. In the winter of 1838 he was seized with an attack of
the grippe, which was much aggravated by taking cold several
times in his nightly journeys, and later on passed over into a
tedious cough with gradual diminution of strength. Only after
a year had passed these threatening symptoms passed away, and
his former strength returned so fully, that he could again en-
dure, without visible ill effects, the hardships of an ever in-
creasing practice. It is rather peculiar, therefore, that just
about this time Rau had a distinct foreboding of his approach-
ing death, and he communicated this to several persons. Be-
sides his frequent journeys to Frankfurt and along the Rhine,
which, to save time, he usually made at night, without any re-
gard to his health, he was taxed beside his ordinary official
duties by the consultations of foreigners, chiefly Russians and
Englishmen. Even from America he was consulted at various
times in chronic diseases.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
555
Although perfectly vigorous, youthful in gait and carriage,
and even to the last a skillful rider, his vigorous constitution,
nevertheless, had to finally succumb to the accumulating hard-
ships. Having been considerably weakened by several days'
diarrhoea, he undertook in September, 1840, his last journey to
Frankfurt and Mayence, but after passing two nights without
sleeping he returned so exhausted that he was compelled to
immediately take to his bed. A violent fever, seemingly rheu-
matic, but which had proceeded from an inflammatory irrita-
tion of the intestinal mucous membrane and soon showed an
adynamic form, without forming a crisis, quickly used up his
strength, and so, after a fourteen days' sick bed, he closed his
active career on the 22d of September (1841). Shortly before
his decease, the pleasure was yet granted him of seeing all his
children, who were living away from home, gathered around
him, after a long separation. Beside his widow, he leaves a
son and two daughters. His son, formerly a private instructor
at Giessen, was in the year 1824 called to Bern as Professor of
Medicine. The elder daughter is married to a notary, Dr.
Klauprecht in Woerrstadt; the younger daughter to the district-
forester, Von Gall in Buergenheim. May the earth rest light
upon him!
""
Rau at first was inclined to give Isopathy a trial before con
demning it, but later he says: Our materia medica will soon be
filled with the most disgusting articles; would that we might
cover as with a veil all traces of this aberration."
We give the following list of his writings, excepting such as
belong purely to belles-lettres:
(1) "Observateoires ad Pyretologian Reichianam." Erlang,
1800, 8.
(2) "Concerning Reich's Theory of Fever." Erlangen, 1801,
8. (A more extended elaboration of the former treatise.)
(3) "De Acido Benzoico Memorabilia Quædam." Erlan.,
1801, 8.
(4) "Natural History," arranged and adapted to the common.
understanding, by Joh. Ferd. Schlez. Second part: "Botany
and Mineralogy," by Dr. Gottlieb Martin Wilhelm Ludwig Rau.
Rothenburg, 1807, 8.
(5) "Manual for Midwives," for self instruction and for use
as a manual. Giessen and Darmstadt, 1807, 8.
556
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
(6) "Directions for Writing Useful Reports of Diseases, for
Thinking Laymen." Giessen, 1807, 8.
(7) "Concerning the Diagnosis and Cure of the Entire Hem-
orrhoidal Disease." 2 vols. Giessen, 1821, 8.
(8) "Concerning the Value of the Homoeopathic Method of
Cure." Heidelberg, 1824, 8.
(9) Concerning the Treatment of Typhus." In the Heidel-
berger Klinische Annalen, 1826. Vol. 2, pp. 264-321, 371-447,
497-531.
(10) "Concerning the Diagnosis and Cure of Nervous Fever."
Darmstadt, 1829, 8.
I
(11) History and Importance of the Homoeopathic Therapy,
in brief Outline." Giessen, 1833, 8.
(12) "Contributions to Therapy;" also under the title: "Ideas
Toward the Scientific Demonstration of the System of Homo-
opathic Therapy." Giessen, 1834, 800.
(13) "Concerning the Value of the Homeopathic Method of
Cure." Second fully revised and augmented edition. Heidel-
berg, 1835, 8.
(C
(6
""
(14) Circular Letter to All Adherents of the Rational
Therapy, Together With Some Theses Concerning Homo-
opathy." Giessen, 1836, 8.
(15) "Organon of Specific Therapy." Leipzig, 1838, 8.
(16) "Various Short Medical and Obstetrical Articles in
Journals," e. g., Horn's N. Archiv fuer die Medicinische Erfah-
rung, concerning retention of urine with women in childbed.
Vol. I, No. 2, p. 336.
Description of a turnining of the fetus caused by nature, with
some practical observations. Vol. II, No. 2, p. 296.
Several articles in the Gemeinsame Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer
Geburtekunde. Various reviews, especially in the Jenaer Liter-
aturzeitung, etc. (N. W. Jour. Hom. (1851), vol. 3, pp. 143,
166. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 38, p. 33. Kleinert, 149, etc. Dud-
geon's Lectures. Ameke, p. 191.)
REICHELM, GUSTAVUS. Was born at Alt Dam, a village
near Stettin in Prussia, on the 30th of January, 1807. His father
at the time was mayor of the place. Gustavus and his brother
Frederic began their studies at the Gymnasium (a preparatory
school for the University of Stettin) previous to their father's
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
557
death, which occurred January 30, 1816. Gustavus remained at
the Gymnasium until he was qualified to pursue his studies at
the University of Halle. Here he at first applied himself to the
study of Jurisprudence, but soon changed from that to medicine.
He continued his studies in this at Berlin. He came to this
country about the year 1834 and made the acquaintance of Drs.
Hering and Wesselhoeft. These gentlemen had just founded in
Allentown the first homoeopathic college on this continent.
Here he studied Homœopathy, and from that time until his death
he was an ardent disciple of Hahnemann. He commenced the
practice of Homœopathy at Hamburg, Pa., but on the advice of
Dr. Hering went to Pittsburgh in 1837. Here his kindhearted-
ness and manliness, together with his great success in practice,
soon won for him many friends, and through him Homoeopathy
was rendered a great blessing to both rich and poor. In 1853,
much to the regret of his friends in Pittsburgh, he removed to
Philadelphia. (Chas. G. Raue, M. D., in Am. Hom. Review.)
In 1850 Dr. J. P. Drake published the following article in
Kirby's Am. Journal of Homœopathy.
In the following lines, I shall endeavor briefly to describe the
passage of Homœopathy west of the Alleghenies.
A young man, educated in medicine at the University of Halle,
in Germany, moved by a spirit of enterprise to seek his field of
labor in the "New Worid "arrived in our country in the autumn
of 1834. Making the acquaintance of his distinguished country-
men, Drs. Hering and Wesselhoft, with the latter of whom he
had an opportunity of testing more fully than he had before done
the truthfulness of the homoeopathic law of cure, he soon re-
nounced fully and forever the "Old School," the School of
guessing, and commenced practice as a disciple of Hahnemann.
Strongly united to his new associates by attachment to a com-
mon cause and enmity to a common foe, he was soon vigorously
coöperating with them in the spread of medical reform in the
land of his adoption.
In the establishment of the first Homœopathic School of medi-
cine on our continent,* he was a mover, and while it flourished,
even though far removed from it, he yet cherished an abiding
interest in its welfare. But light radiating from the true Escu-
* The Allentown Academy of the Homeopathic Healing Art, Allentown,
Pa.
558
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
lapian altar, established around Philadelphia by the disciples of
Hahnemann, gleaming in the distance, had already streaked the
West, disturbing the dreams of Allopathy, and gladdening the
anxious gaze of the pain tossed, sleepless victims of disease.
The time drew near when, like the disciples of the Great
Teacher, they must part, and each bearing a light to open the
eyes of the sleeping and a remedy to relieve the pains of the
suffering go to seek their fields of labor in other parts. In the
summer of 1837, Dr. Hering received a letter from a clergyman
in Pittsburgh, urging him to send a homoeopathic physician.
over the "
mountains." The call was laid before the medical
"Burschenshaft." The undertaking seemed hard and almost
hazardous.
To leave such a brotherhood, to labor alone amid strangers,
and in the face of violent opposition, was indeed an enterprise
that might challenge the resolution and courage of the bravest.
At the pause given by the magnitude of the undertaking, Reich-
helm, whose character I have briefly sketched, being urged by
Dr. Hering to accept the call, replied, "Give me five minutes to
think of it." The fruits of that "five minutes" reflection are
to-day ripening all over the great Southwest. The spirit that
had enabled him to tear away from his fatherland enabled him
likewise to triumph over the fear of all contests and hardships
in promoting the cause to which the energies of his whole soul
were devoted. The lapse of a few weeks saw him upon the sum-
mit of the Alleghenies, westward bound, and a few more found
him settled in the "Iron City."
Thus, while the darkness of medical ignorance in America
was as unbroken and uninviting as her primitive wilderness
when interrupted only by scattered colonies dotting the Atlantic
coast, he entered the wild and far spreading valley of the West
with flambeau" and "heilkraft
and "heilkraft" in hand.
(6
The very site, selected nearly a century before by young
Washington as the most suitable and commanding for the first
stronghold of the Anglo-Saxon arms in the West, was occupied
by Reichhelm, in 1837, as the most important stand to be taken
in subduing his vast field to the mild and healthful reign of
Homœopathy.
The spell broken, -the mountains long looming up like a
hideous spectre, to guard the entrance to the land of promise,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
559
once passed, others catching the "Westward ho" followed
toward the "setting sun."
But a few months elapsed, when Dr. Pulte, also a member of
the Allentown School, passing Reichhelm, planted the standard
of reform in Cincinnati. About three years later, he was joined
by Dr. Bauer, likewise a member of the Allentown School.
Not having at hand the means of knowing the manner of its
subsequent introduction to other places in the West, I shall
briefly notice the labors of our earliest pioneer in Pittsburgh.
Upon Dr. Reichhelm's arrival at his new location, the clergy-
man who had written the letter to Dr. Hering, alone gave him a
hearty welcome. Few men have ever engaged in so important
an enterprise, under circumstances so embarrassing. Advocating
a system, with the superiority of which the people were entirely
unacquainted,-a principle antagonistic to the notions and prac-
tice of all other physicians around him, he was compelled to
bear the insolence and professional abuse of ill-bred opponents,
without the hand of sympathy, or even the cloak of charity, that
are now so readily extended by an enlightened community to
the reformer in any department of science. Unacquainted with
the peculiar habits and tacts of American Society, the contests
into which he was drawn by the "natives" seemed to him
more like a guerrilla warfare" than a scientific encounter.
Very soon after his establishment, through the influence of his
friend, the clergyman, he was employed as attending physician
to the Pittsburgh Orphan Asylum.
(
The success of his practice there, for nearly twelve years, has
been almost without parallel, even in the history of Homo-
opathy. I omit the particulars of his treatment there, with the
intention of furnishing them in a concise form, at some future
time.
For a long time Dr. Reichhelm stood alone in Pittsburgh. It
is true, physicians calling themselves homœopathists made their
appearance around him from time to time, yet for nearly ten
years he found none in whom he could recognize a true and pure
disciple of Hahnemann. To fraternize with such, to give them
countenance, seemed to him alike inconsistent and injurious.
Regarding the purity of Homoeopathy of greater importance.
than its rapid and alloyed diffusion, he sternly refused his favor
to any and all who, esteeming themselves far in advance of the
560
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
old school, and even able to improve the new by correcting a law
of Nature, mixed the two systems in a wild and senseless prac-
tice. Adhering thus to fixed principles, he persevered; and per-
severing, he succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations.
Year after year he had the satisfaction of seeing his cause pro-
gressing safely and rapidly. Learning and wealth at first lend-
ing him their favor, at length gave him their strong support.
To day he has at his side able colleagues, and around him a
vast and yet increasing number of wealthy and intelligent
patrons. Twelve years have now elapsed since the passage of
Homœopathy west of the Alleghenies. But how changed its
appearance and prospects! In the mighty field where Reichhelm
stood alone, hundreds are now dispensing its blessings to the
sick and suffering. Along the broad valley, across the Missis-
sippi, over the Rocky mountains, and along the Pacific, the dis-
ciples of the illustrious Hahnemann have made their way. Even
in California they are found, comforting the lonely stranger, who,
leaving a cheerful home, has sacrificed health in pursuit of the
"El Dorado" of the Nineteenth century.
By the foregoing article we learn that Gustavus Reichhelm,
M. D., was a native of Germany and a graduate of the Univer-
sity of Halle; that he arrived in this county in the year 1834,
and soon after renounced the old and adopted the new school of
medicine.
→
We are also informed that he coöperated with Drs. Hering and
Wesselhoft in establishing the "Allentown Academy of Medi-
cine." In 1837 he located in Pittsburgh, Pa, as the pioneer of
Homœopathy west of the Allegheny mountains. Sixteen years.
of the prime of his life were spent in Pittsburgh, in the conscien-
tious discharge of the arduous duties of his profession. Nor
were his labors unrewarded. His practice was large and re-
munerative. Starting out "solitary and alone" on his arrival,
he had the satisfaction, on his departure sixteen years after,
(1853), of leaving many able colleagues to reap where he had
sown. Dr. R. was a strict homoeopathist, and used the single
remedy in the thirtieth potency. He located in Philadelphia in
1853, where he soon established a large and select practice. His
former patients never neglected to give him a call when visiting
the "City of Brotherly Love." He died suddenly of apoplexy
in Philadelphia, November 21, 1861, mourned by a host of per-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
561
sonal friends occupying high social positions, many of whom
had been his former patients. He practiced up to the evening of
his death
In 1887 Dr. Dake delivered an oration at the Semi Centennial
at Pittsburgh of the Passage of Homoeopathy over the Alleghen-
ies, in which he mentioned the following facts about Reichhelm:
Rev. Father Byer, a Catholic clergyman stationed in Pittsburgh,
understanding the advantages of Homoeopathy, wrote to Dr.
Hering to send him one of its practitioners. It took him five
minutes to decide to go. Received by Father Byer and a few
others who had been induced to seek relief and length of days
by the novel method, Reichhelm began his work here on the
10th day of October, 1837. Known at first as the "Dutch Doc-
tor" and then the "Sugar Powder Doctor," he moved quietly
on, provoking only smiles of derision from the medical men
around him. He was employed as attending physician at the
Catholic Orphan Asylum, where the cures effected attracted
much attention and inspired confidence in the new practice.
During a period of nearly twelve years under his medical admin-
istration, and with several epidemics of measles, whooping
cough and scarlet fever, there were but two deaths among the
inmates of the institution. One of these cases was a child who
died of inanition. I had the statement from one of the old
visitors of the asylum that more children died during the first
year after an allopathic attendant was employed than during
Reichhelm's whole term of a dozen years. The change of at-
tendants was made because the asylum fell into a new manage
ment, ignorant of Homœopathy. * * * On one occasion a
slanderous report was circulated against Reichhelm by two prom
inent allopathic physicians. A prompt demend for retraction was
met with denial from one party, by contempt from the other.
Suit was brought, but the friends of the traducer effected a com-
promise. For eight years Reichhelm worked alone, and then
Dr. Charles Nayer located across the river, in Allegheny City.
Reichhelm was finely educated, of commanding presence, self-
reliant, of few words, and always cheerful and kind. (World's
Con., vol. 2, p 655; Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 3, p. 96; Trans. Am.
Inst. Hom., 1865; Kirby's Am. Jour. Hom., vol. 4. p. 129;
Trans. Penn. Hom Soc., 1870-71; Semi Centennial of Celebration
of Homœopathy at Pittsburgh, Sept. 1887 Pittsburgh, 1888. Con-
tains portrait of Reichhelm.)
562
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
RENOU, JOSEPH. Born in Paris in 1788, received classi-
cal and medical studies; of good family. He was destined
by his family, who had great influence under the re-
storation, and was taken from medicine to perform the duties
of Vice Consul in an American possession. After a stay
of of 12 or 15 years-having become still more interested
in medicine and when his health had suffered from an asthmatic
complaint-he demanded his discharge and returned to Paris.
He reached there in 1834-and apprised of the first success of
Homœopathy and with the precision and lucidity that dis-
tinguished his mind-he did not hesitate to abandon the un-
settled theories of his first master, Bronssais, to confine himself
exclusively to the method of Hahnemann. He addressed him-
self to one of our most esteem practitioners, Leon Simon, to learn
pure Homoeopathy. Our honorable and learned brother-re-
cognizing in his new patient the great qualities which are the
true apostles to true novelties—(truths), he was not content with
curing him but offered to initiate him into Homœopathy.
Cured by Homoeopathy and convinced of its truths, our friend
went to Angers where he sought to spread the new doctrine.
He lived and died there. He wrote no special book, but
only journal articles
(By Dr. F. Perrussel). He died at Angers April 25, 1860, in
his 62d year.
Bull de la Soc. Med. V. I, 187.
REUBEL, J. His name appears in the Zeitung list of 1832,
when he was located at Munich.
Rapou says: J. Reubel, dean of the Faculty of Medicine of
Munich and professor of physiology, is the firmest and most
honorable representative of our school in that city. Without
him that method would for a long time have been com-
pletely arrested in its progress by the tyrannical measures taken
for that purpose. It was through him these measures were re-
voked after a long fight of six years with the authorities, from
1837 to 1843 and he permitted me to examine the volumi-
nous correspondence with the ministers I saw there a number
of articles upon our school and the rights of free dispensing.
Reubel has practiced Homoeopathy since 1822, but out of
Munich, where it had only been known since 1832, the time in
OF HOMEOPATHY.
563
which our school gained in that city a certain standing. He
was one of the most zealous physicians of the temporary hospital
that Minister Wallestein had allowed us; and he guarded with
great attention the greater part of the clinical observations ob-
tained there. He is an exact Hahnemannian, but nevertheless
attached only a secondary importance to the doctrine of psora and
condemned the extension which the Master had wished to give it.
Reubel has never published anything; he is a man learned and
modest, who has always preferred the interests of our school to
his own. (Rapou, vol. 2, p. 348.)
REUTER. Quin, in his list of 1834, mentions Reuter as prac-
ticing at Nuremburg. He succeeded Dr. Preu at that place on
the death of the latter in 1832.
REYMOND. Quin, in his list of homoeopathic physicians of
1834. gives the name as a practitioner at Latour du Pin.
RIGAUD. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at
Pons, France.
RINGSEISS. Was located in Munich in 1832. He soon
became clinical professsor. Rapou says: About 1830 Dr. Ring-
seiss, clinical professor in the University of Munich, made ex-
periments in his hospital at the request of Attomyr, whose in-
struction and amiability had completely captured his regard.
But that which was important to our zealous brother was the diffi-
cult task of changing the habits and mode of treatment of an old
physician. Now Ringseiss had success and was satisfied of the
practical value of the new medical system, and so were his
students, who applauded and encouraged him, and it seemed
time for the introduction of Homoeopathy into Munich.
But no
one in the university was prepared for this strangeness; they
were equally ignorant of its raisons d'etre, its priuciples, its
origin and its developments. The statements favorable to the
new method resolved themselves into murmurs. Not under-
standing sufficiently to enter into a discussion, they returned to
the old ways. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 249; vol. 2, p. 344.)
RINO, PEDRO Y HURTADO. Dr. Rino, writing in the
Archivos Medicina Homœopathica, says:
Many years before Homœopathy was known at Madrid it was
564
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
general at Toro, Valledo, Sid Grenada, Alcolaba Real, Cadiz,
Sevilla and particularly so in the small city of Badajoz, then
capital of the old province of Estramadura, and to-day capital of
the province of Dadajoz, situated on the border of the Guordiana
river, and three miles from the Lusitanian frontier, and nine
miles from its most important fortress, Elvas. There, in that
dark corner of Spain, lived in the year 1832 a poor and humble
man, sixty years old, a licentiate in medicine and surgery and
titular surgeon of the city, with a salary of 600 reals ($300,)
loaded with family and cares, but rich, very rich in virtues, and
in the holy enthusiam for the cause of humanity and knowledge.
He was surely the first one who, in Spain, occupied himself
with the study, practice and diffusion of Homœopathy.
He was surely the first to obtain these surprising results
which he communicated to Dr. Francisco Jose Rubiales and my-
self. There it was that the doctor of pharmacy, Juan Manuel
Rubiales, prepared the first medicine whose proper administra-
tion gave such surprising results.
Rapou writes: Homeopathy was practiced for the first time
in 1835 in the town of Badajoz, province of Estramadura, by a
distinguished physician, Dr. Pedro Rino y Hurtado, who pub-
lished a review called Archivos de la Medicina Homeopathica,
forming to day two large volumes. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 323.
U. S. Med. Inv., vol. 10, p 84 Rapou 1, 178.)
ROCH. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 he was prac
ticing at Chemnitz. Quin also mentions him as located at the
san e place in 1834.
ROEHL, DR. THEODOR. That it should be allotted to me
to show the last and saddest office of love also to him, to my ex-
cellent beloved friend, but just now blooming and working in
his full vigorous life. This seemed as improbable and unex-
pected to me, as it is now most painful. Be it then allowed to
the friend to call up before us once more the image and life of
our early-perfected friend, who so entirely and with all his
powers was devoted to the holy cause of the pure healing art.
All who acknowledge this cause as theirs will thus once more be
able to view him and to be thereby edified, and to lament with
me the sevdre loss which art, his family and his friends have
suffered by his premature death. While in the beginning, it
OF HOMEOPATHY.
565
was art which closely conjoined me with him, our souls also soon
united in a faithful and heartfelt love, and there was formed
between us a most intimately, loving relation that, as long as
he lived, was to me a source of the purest joys, and which, now
that he has departed, is a source of deep melancholy and mourn-
ing.
"Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus,
Tam cari capitis ?”
Theodor Roehl was born in the month of May, 1799, in Buent-
heim, in the district of Harzburg, in the duchy of Brunswick,
where his father had an apothecary's shop. From his early
youth he received a careful education and enjoyed the excellent
instruction of Hobze, who afterwards became his brother in-law,
and who is now secretary of the Royal Supreme Court; this
learned man prepared him for school and brought him to the
cathedral school at Halberstadt. Even in his earliest youth,
according to the testimony of his quondam teacher and friend,
he was distinguished by earnest application and quick compre-
hension; a delightful purity and innocence of mind was even
then, as it continued to be throughout his career, a characteris-
tic of his being. His quick spirit, his indefatigable striving for
higher knowledge and scientific attainments, needed no awaken-
ing at the hand of his teachers, but required merely to be di-
rected. In the year 1818 he attended the Berlin University, to
devote himself there to the study of medicine: and after a most
satisfactory examination, he received his diploma in the year
1823 and settled down to practice in Querfurth, a provincial
town in the Royal Prussian Duchy of Saxony. Here he practiced
according to the allopathic method, until in 1827 his attention
was directed to Homœopathy through several homoeopathic
cures of severe diseases effected in his neighborhood by homoeo-
pathic physicians. He at once devoted to it a purer and more
kindly attention than is wont to be the case with allopathic
physicians.
With this period also commenced his relations with me, at
first purely scientific, then ever more friendly. These relations
were forwarded by the nearness of his residence at that time to
Naumburg, as well as through various opportunities granted me
of treating patients conjointly with him. I have a vivid and
joyous recollection of his first timid steps in advancing from the
566
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
the practice of Allopathy toward Homœopathy, which impressed
him ever more favorably with its principles. I remember his
internal struggles caused thereby, our conversations on this im-
portant subject, the conviction as to the truth and value of Hom-
œopathy becoming ever more fully established with him, and
finally his fervid joy at this new light that had risen upon him
and which brightened and inspired his whole life. He now
labored indefatigably to acquire all that the art offers, and to
form himself into a thorough homoeopath, in which he was en-
tirely successful, and this contributed much to his fame and
practice, which, despite of many hostile reactions, continually
became more considerable and distinguished, so that in his last
years it might well be called excellent. As from his internal
love for the good cause, he continually strove to further perfect
himself, so by his manly words and actions he contributed his
share to the spread of Homoeopathy by speaking and acting in
its favor with all the noble zeal springing from love for the truth.
Thus he gained for it in a large circle numerous and influential
friends. He also stood up in its defence in various pamphlets,
in which he refuted various charges made against Homœopathy.
Whenever he spoke about Allopathy, it was very apparent that
he wrote as one having a thorough knowledge, and as being
familiarly versed in it; and since he, although fiery, ever opposed
it in a noble, dignified manner, his word was all the more effec
tive; the enthusiasm, also, with which he spoke of Homœopathy
was of such a pure and fair nature that it seldom failed to affect
his heaters favorably. He was ready to offer any sacrifice
wherever truth might be furthered or defended, as is proved by
many facts. His pure and fervid love for Homœopathy, the
thorough knowledge of this domain that he had acquired, the
vivid sympathy he devoted to everything that concerned it, as
well as his winning personality, gained for him the especial es-
teem and confidence of the most distinguished friends of Homo-
opathy; in consequence he was also on the 10th of August of
last year (in 1833) elected as one of the directors of the Central
Society of Homœopathic Physicians.
Enjoying a successful and lucrative practice, as well as the
confidence and love of his many patients, and being blessed by
a lively intercourse with sympathetic friends, and living joyously
in his art, and in his worthy family circle, he would hardly have
OF HOMEOPATHY.
567
followed the honorable call extended to him at the beginning of
the year 1833 by a number of respected friends of Homœopathy,
to move to Halberstadt as a homoeopathic physician under very
alluring financial circumstances, unless he had thought that in
the more extended and influential circle of a larger city he
might do still more for Homoeopathy and gain for it still more
influential friends. So, not without a painful struggle, in May,
1833, he left his residence in Querfurth to settle in Halberstadt.
With sadness and not without anxious forebodings, I saw him.
part, for not only would our friendly relations, which hitherto
had been favored by propinguity, be necessarily disturbed, but
as I clearly forsaw severe struggles for him there I was not
without anxiety for him and his real happiness.
And how dreadfully were these forebodings realized! Although
he was received by a considerable circle of intimate friends who
sincerely loved him and Homoeopathy, and though highly
favored and pressed with work, and in many ways rejoiced and
rewarded by the successful results of his efforts, he yet could not
escape the opposition which every higher good and truth which
deviates from the customary and beaten track has to expect.
Manifold emnities and persecutions did not fail to ensue, and
these deeply wounded his noble, loving heart, troubled his life
and undermined his health which had been so excellent. Thus
already morbidly disposed, he encountered an epidemy of nerv-
ous fever which prevailed in the month of March; this not only
increased his work, but it also exposed him to the danger of
infection. He had just succeeded in healing five children in one
house from this fever, when he, while he already felt very weary
and unwell, was called in the evening to visit the father, who
had just fallen sick. With repugnance and with a foreboding
of his own danger, he fulfilled a physician's duty and visited the
patient, but returned feeling much worse, and had to take to his
bed the same evening and quickly lapsed into very dangerous
nervous states, which he only very transiently succeeded in re-
moving, and on the 30th of March of this year (1834) his life
which had been so purely and lovingly devoted to his art and to
humanity came to an end. He left behind him an excellent
wife and four children, the joy and delight of his life.
Our departed friend was one of those rare men in whom mind
and soul and body are uniformly and vigorously developed, and
568
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in the fairest harmony: in corpore sano, mens sana.
Clear in his
thoughts, warm and ardent in his feelings, firm in will and
deeply in earnest, he belonged as much to science as to life; he
was equally thorough and lovable in both directions. A strict
friend of truth, wherever it appeared, he lived and worked in the
spirit of truth, became its defender, and nothing could make him
falter. Amiable and pious in the fairest sense of the word, he
was a model in all his relations to God and to man, and I was
often with the inmost joy a happy witness of this fact.
May this sketch, which only faintly outlines what is most ex-
cellent a sketch which friendship has drawn with equal love
and fidelity, show what he was as a physician and as a man,
what he has done for Homoeopathy, and what-if his life and
activity had been prolonged-he would in even a greater meas-
ure have accomplished.
(A Multis Ille bonis flebilis occidit.'
(Archiv. f. Hom. Heilkunst, vol. 14, part 2, p. 128.)
ROMANI, FRANCESCO. Dr. Francesco Romani, who
lately died in Napes, was born in the year 1785, in Vasto.
After finishing his mathematical, philosophic and literary
studies he was at an early age engaged in a school there; but he
soon turned to medicine, and went to Naples to study it; there
he also began to practice, and soon became so famous that Queen
Maria Amalia appointed him her court physician. With the
Austrian troops who occupied the country in 1822, owing to a
revolution, there also came a homoeopathic physician to Naples,
a Dr. Necker, who soon drew the general attention to himself,
owing to his brilliant cures. Romani, who at that time was
himself failing, determined, not only to become acquainted with
the new physician and the new method, but to prove the same
on himself, and, therefore, gave himself into the hands of Dr.
Necker for treatment. The favorable effects experienced from
the homoeopathic pellets, both on himself and on others, deter-
mined him to devote himself with all zeal to the study of Homo-
opathy, and also to use it exclusively in his practice. And soon.
he succeeded, through his brilliant cures, to contribute much to
the spread of Homœopathy, for which he also labored by writing
several treatises and by translating Hahnemann's "Materia
Medica Pura" into Italian. Romani was the first physician to
OF HOMEOPATHY.
569
introduce the new doctrine into Italy, and has done it good
service. Romani is also known as a belletristic author and poet,
and his elegies on the Princess Borghese and on Hahnemann are
considered models as to style and as to depth of feeling. Kindly,
sympathetic, self-sacrificing and faithful, Romani was a real
father to his patients, and his death, therefore, evoked the deep-
est and most painful sympathy in all circles.
Homœopathy has suffered an irreparable loss. Dr. Franz
Romani in Naples, who first made Homoeopathy known in Italy,
and who spread it abroad through his writings, his cures and his
fame, has died.
He was born in 1785 at Vasto, and received his schooling
there. While quite a young man he went to Naples to study
medicine. After completing his studies, he soon acquired so
fair a fame that the Queen Maria Amalia gave him her confi-.
dence and made him her physician.
When the year 1821, so fatal to Italy, brought there the
homoeopathic physician, Dr. Necker, who accompanied the
Austrian army, and he in a short time, through some successful
cures, drew attention to himself, Romani went to him to consult
him about his own severe malady, and to become acquainted
with the principles of cure through which Necker obtained
such striking results.
The results effected by the little pellets on himself made such
a powerful effect upon him that he devoted himself to the study
of the new doctrine, and when he had fully mastered it he spread
it in Italy, as well as in England, through the cure of the
Duchess Shrelisbourg (Shrewsbury ?), through several homœo-
pathic publications and through the translation of "Hahne-
mann's Materia Medica Pura."
But not only in medicine, but also in Belles lettres, the genial
Romani had his triumphs. His poems had a great fame among
the Italian literati; his odes on the death of the Princess
Borghese and of Hahnemann are considered models of elegance
and of sublimity.
Kindly, beneficent, and loving, he treated his patients as an
unselfish, faithful friend, with a fatherly affection, and where he
could not stay their death their decease often filled his eyes with
The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole city
and its surroundings, and a great number of friends and admirers
attended him to his resting place.
tears.
570
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
•
At his grave a celebrated scholar delivered a funeral oration,
from which we excerpt the following: "Romani devoted himself
from his early youth to the study of medicine, and seized upon
its spirit in all of its departments. It was not a readiness to
change, nor ignorance, nor unacquaintance with the older
sources of learning which caused him to introduce among us the
German doctrine, Homœopathy; it was nothing but his deep
conviction of its undeniable truth. Therefore, he believed him-
self called to proclaim it with intrepidity. If he had followed the
broad road, riches and preferments would have been heaped upon
him, but he chose the contempt of others and small income in
order to be of use to mankind. He sought not to conquer by
boldness, nor to yield ignobly and to intrigue, but he labored
with the dignity of a wise man, through persuasion, admonish-
ments and by refusing all deceitful sycophancy.
And
the whole city, even down to the lowest strata of its inhabitants,
can testify to him, that his behavior never was that of a charla-
tan, who addresses himself to what is base in man, but the noble
action of a man whose soul burns with the pure flame of truth
and shrinks back from all dark ways." (From the Journal de la
Soc. Gallicane, by Croserio.) A. H. Z. vol. 47, p. 64; Z. F. Hom.
Klinik vol 3, p. 24.
He visited England in the fall of 1830 in the train of the Earl
and Countess of Shrewsbury. Dr. Taglianini was in the same
suite. They both returned to Italy the following year.
The editor of the British Journal for January, 1854, says:
Homœopathy in Italy has experienced a great loss by the recent
decease of this distinguished homoeopathic physician. Francesco
Romani was born at Vasto Chieti in 1785, where he made his pre-
liminary studies in literature, mathematics and philosophy. He
studied medicine and took his degree at Naples, and rapidly
acquired so great a reputation that he gained the confidence of
the queen, who appointed him her physician in ordinary. In
1821 the Austrians invaded the Neapolitan dominions; attached
to the invading army was a homoeopathic practitioner, Dr.
Necker, who excited a great deal of attention among the
Neapolitans, by his remarkable cures, during his stay in the
city. Dr. Romani was at the time suffering from a very pain-
ful disease, and, attracted by the fame of the homoeopathist he
put himself under his care, and was rapidly cured by him. This
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
571
determined him to study Homoeopathy, which he did with great
earnestness and zeal; he soon became proficient in the art and
practiced it with great success at Naples. The late Earl of
Shrewsbury, whose Countess he had cured of a severe disease,
induced him to accompany him to England in 1827. At the
Earl's noble Seat in Alton Towers, a regular homoeopathic dis-
pensary was formed, under the medical care of Romani. The
climate did not agree with him and after a short residence in En-
gland, where he was the first open practitioner of Homœopathy,
he returned to his Bella Napoli and continued to the last to en-
dear himself to his patients by his skill and kindliness of disposi-
tion. He published several original works on Homoeopathy and
translated Hahnemann's Materia Medica into Italian. His
funeral was attended by an immense concourse of friends and
patients by whom he will be much missed.
Dr. Romani, in 1825, edited a translation into Italian of the
Materia Medica Pura, and later published some original works.
In 1828 he converted to Homœopathy Count Des Guidi, who
afterwards held a very important position in the homoeopathic
school. In 1829 Dr. Romani conducted for 155 days the homo-
opathic clinic opened, by order of the king, in the larger hos-
pital of the Trinity at Naples.
He was one of the contributors to Hahnemann's Fiftieth
Doctor-Jubilee in 1829. His name is on the Zeitung and Quin
lists. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 12, p. 167. Vol. 14, p. 192. Kleinert,
p. 339. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 120. World's Conven., vol. 2, p. 1068.
Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 47, 64. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik., vol. 3, p. 24.)
ROMIG, JOHN. Was born in Lehigh county, Pa., January
3, 1804. His parents were of German extraction, his paternal
grandfather having come to this country about the year 1732.
Having received the degree of M. D. at the University of Penn-
sylvania in 1825, he commenced to practice the same year in the
town of Fogelsville, Lehigh county, Pa. In the spring of 1829
he removed to Allentown, forming a partnership with Dr. Charles
H. Martin. In 1833 he commenced the practice of Homœopathy
and was one of the original members of the Homœopathic Medi-
cal Society of Northampton and adjacent counties. He was one
of the three who formulated the establishment of the Allentown
Academy and was a member of the faculty. He was vice-presi-
572
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
dent of the Board of Trustees and was professor of obstetrics in
the college. In the fall of 1838 he removed to Baltimore with
other practitioners of repute to introduce Homeopathy. Drs.
Haynel and McManus were then in homoeopathic practice in that
city. His stay was but two years, when he returned to Allen-
town, where he passed the rest of his life. He was an active
temperance advocate since 1842 and was one of the Sons of Tem-
perance, Division 7, of Allentown. From 1836 he was an active
and devoted member of the Presbyterian church, also an elder
for a number of years. He had two sons, William H. and George
M. Romig, also physicians, graduates of the University of Penn-
sylvania and of the Homœopathic Medical College of Pennsyl-
vania, and who were his co-partners.
The Hahnemann Monthly thus notices his death: John Romig,
M. D., of Allentown, Pa., died in the early part of February,
1885, having survived his son, the late W. H. Romig, M. D., but
a very brief period. Dr. Romig, the subject of this brief notice,
was born in Lehigh county, Pa., January 3, 1804, his grand-
father having emigrated to America from Germany in 1732.
Graduating at the University of Pennsylvania in 1825, he settled
at Fogelsville, Lehigh county, but in 1829 removed to Allen-
town. His conversion to Homœopathy occurred about 1833,
from which time he was closely identified with the distinguished
homœopathic physicians of that period-Hering, Detwiller,
Wesselhoeft, and others, and united with them in organizing the
old Hahnemannian Society, and in founding the North Ameri-
can Academy of the Homoeopathic Healing Art. Of this insti-
tution he was vice-president and also professor of obstetrics.
From 1838, a period of two years was spent in Baltimore, whence
he returned to Allentown in 1840.
Dr. Romig was an active member of the Presbyterian church
and a zealous advocate of the cause of temperance. His death
removes another of the very few remaining founders of our school
in America. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 774. Hahn. Monthly, vol·
20, p. 192.
Cleave's Biography.)
ROTH, JOSEPH. Leipsic. December 16, 1859. Dr. Joseph
Roth is dead.
Roth was in 1832 located at Munich, according to the Zeitung
list.
He established himself as a teacher of Homoeopathy in the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
573
University at Munich in 1830. Rapou says that what Ring-
seiss, who, with Attomyr, had previously attempted certain
homœopathic experiments in the Munich General Hospital,
failed to accomplish, Roth succeeded perfectly. During the
stay of Rapou, pere, in Leipsic, in 1832, he received a letter
from this professor who expressed his firm convictions of the
efficacy of the new method, saying that he had adopted it en-
tirely, gladly renouncing the plan of revulsives and emetics.
Roth had well understood that it was not experimentation upon
disease which would introduce Homœopathy into Munich, but
that a clear and precise exposition of its principles was neces-
sary; and with this object he opened a course of lectures at
the Faculty Maximilian near the end of 1831. These lessons
purely theoretic, were trials similar to those which had added
interest to the experiences of Ringseiss; they were attended by
a large audience and during the year following were published
under the title: Facts concerning the homoeopathic cure of dis-
ease, in ten lectures, forming one of our more classical works.
In 1832 the government of Bavaria sent into Austria Dr.
Roth, the professor of pathology in the University of Munich, to
make observations on the clinical results of the allopathic and
homoeopathic methods in its treatment. Roth, on his return,
published a voluminous report which established the great
superiority of our method against this terrible epidemic. This
was for our school in Austria a moral triumph. On a second
epidemic of cholera in 1836 he obtained liberty to practice, and
also a hospital. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 21. A. H Z., vol.
59, p. 200. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik., vol. 8, p. 7. Kleinert, pp. 143,
165. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p. 121. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 345.)
ROTH. According to the account of Homoeopathy in France
in the World's Convention Transactions there was a pioneer of
Homœopathy named Roth, in Paris. (World's Conv., vol. 2,
p. 152.)
ROUX. Leipsic, Nov. 6, 1874, Dr. Roux, of Cette (France),
is dead.
Dr. Peladan in the Bibl. Hom. says: Homoeopathy has lost a
true friend; Dr. Roux, of Cette, is dead. He was an excellent
physician, devoted to Homœopathy, and although well-known as
such the Faculty of Montpellier held him in public honor. He
574
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
was in the first rank among the judges at the examinations of
the internal clinics. Montpellier always shows politeness to the
doctrines of Hahnemann. The Revue Therapeutique du Midi
published the observations of Dr. Roux upon a case of cholera
treated by the homoeopathic method. After some years of Allo-
pathy, Dr. Roux studied Homoeopathy, and experience con-
vinced him of its superiority over official medicine. He was
very nervous, sensitive, impressionable, sympathetic with suffer-
ing, and the practice of medicine was to him very painful.
Having little ease and slight ambition he renounced the practice,
but a clientage more or less needy often compelled him in spite
of himself to exercise his art. At the time when he became a
homoeopathist a painful affliction forced him to abandon practice.
This, however, did not hinder him from testing the system;
although he wished to rest and to attend to his affliction, yet his
good heart would not allow him to refuse the boon of Homo-
opathy to the sick. The patients would not give him up: con-
vinced of the superiority of the new over the old method of medi-
cine. Victim of their exclusive confidence, poor Dr. Roux
sacrificed his health to the wishes of his patients. When it was
impossible to go on he stopped. It was too late; he had used
himself up in the cause of Homoeopathy. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
89, p. 160. Bibl. Hom., vol. 6, p. 223.)
RUBIALES, JUAN MANUEL. Was the first homoeopathic
pharmacist in Spain. He in 1833 prepared homoeopathic medi-
cines for Dr. Rino y Hurtado at Badajoz. (World's Conv., vol.
2, p. 323. U. S. Med. Inv., vol. 10, p. 85.)
RUBINI, ROCCO. Was a distinguished pioneer of Italian
Homœopathy. Quin, in 1834, tells us that he was practising at
Teramo. Dadea says that in 1832 he went into the province of
Teramo, where Homœopathy was held in great esteem on ac-
count of what had been accomplished by other physicians and
veterinary surgeons, and by the pharmacist Crocetti di Mosciano,
a distinguished botanist, who founded a homoeopathic labora-
tory which attained a great reputation. After having been en-
gaged for eight years with his worthy colleagues in extending
the field of Homœopathy in this province, Rubini returned to
Naples and took up his residence there. In that city his en-
thusiastic devotion to the new science, his energetic efforts in
-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
575
its cause, and a highly successful practice, procured him much
renown, and in 1850 he was appointed physician to His Royal
Highness, the Count of Syracuse.
It
It
The influence of Dr. Rubini with this prince was of great ad-
vantage to the cause of Homoeopathy in this region. Through
the intercession of the prince permission was obtained from the
Neapolitan government for the establishment of a specific
Homœopathic pharmacy, which opened in August, 1852.
was called the Draggon Pharmacy. This institution was of
great service in affording proofs of the unfounded nature of the
allegations brought by allopaths, and was an effectual answer to
the ridicule they sought to heap upon the new doctrines.
did much to establish Homœopathy yet more firmly throughout
the kingdom, and formed a precedent in its legislation which
was to produce important results. In 1854 Rubini was invited
to undertake the superintendence of the Royal Hospital for the
Poor. It happened that an infirmarian, to whom he had con-
fided the duty of administering camphor during the first stages
of cholera, reserving to himself the privilege of prescribing for
the subsequent stages, found on his hands a grave case of the
disease, and during the absence of the doctor, being without
further instructions, he continued to give camphor until finally
the patient became well. Another very grave case was accord-
ingly treated by the doctor in the same way, camphor being
used both externally and internally, and the result was again
favorable. These two facts he considered as tending to prove
that camphor could safely be prescribed in any stage of cholera.
Encouraged by this experience, he made use of no other remedy
in the epidemics of 1854, 1855 and 1865, and out of 448 cases
which came under his hands in every case the patient was
cured. Out of 255 cases treated by others in the same manner
in Naples and in the Abruzzi provinces, only two deaths are re-
corded. Of those cured by him in 1854 and 1855, fifteen were
in an algid condition. The cases of cholera sicca were not few;
seven were accompanied with epileptic convulsions.
The Camphor was prepared by alcoholic solution in equal
parts with highly rectified spirits; the dose was five drops, at
times twenty or thirty drops, given every five minutes on a
piece of sugar. The spirits were rubbed over the whole body,
eight pounds being once employed in a desperate case, and were
576
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
also injected; as preservative, they were administered in doses
of five drops three or four times a day.
These facts are given in full by Rubini, and are proved by
documents, whose authenticity and correctness have in but few
cases been denied, in a work which he republished several times,
each edition being enriched by the addition of new facts. The
book was entitled "Statistics of Cholera Patients Cured Solely by
the Use of Camphor in 1854-55 and '65," and on the strength of
these facts he claimed from the Academy of France the Breant
premium.
These statements were denied in the Allg. hom. Zeitung, Vol.
75, p. 136, and Dr. Rubini's answer with affidavits may be
found in the same volume, p. 159. The French Academy re-
fused to recognize Dr. Rubini's cures or to award a premium; in
Italy the government refused to avail itself of his services, which
he offered gratuitously whenever the cholera broke out.
It was
not till 1866 that he could obtain any recognition of his merits.
In this year he was appointed to take charge of the Cholera
Hospital of Foggia; but owing to the savage intolerance of the
allopaths on one hand and the weakness of the authorities on
the other the appointment was rendered futile. The prefect of
Foggia, intimidated by the threats of the old school of physi-
cians, received him courteously and conducted him over the
whole province; but neither at Foggia, nor at San Severo, nor
at Alpicena, where the epidemic was raging most violently, did
he permit him to prescribe for a single case of cholera.
In May, 1860, he was appointed to the clinical direction of the
small hospital called the Spedale della Cesarea, which is under
the charge of the Board of Managers for the Royal Hospital of
the Poor. This office he held for three years and a half. The
managers not being able to provide the necessary funds, Rubini
defrayed out of his own purse the expenses necessary for clean-
ing the walls of the hospital, for renewing the pavements, sup-
plying the beds with linen, etc. During this period four hun-
dred and fifty patients were restored to health, and six died,
under his treatment; while during the three previous years,
when the hospital was in allopathic hands, out of four hundred
and forty-eight patients the deaths were twenty-nine.
A certain allopathic physician, of the name of Ciccone, being
appointed Superintendent of the Royal Hospital of the Poor,
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
577
Rubini of course found it impossible to retain his position any
longer, and, notwithstanding the money he had disbursed and
the success attending his treatment, he was obliged to renounce
the hopes he had formed of continuing to demonstrate in that
hospital the superiority of homoeopathic methods.
(6
Another circumstance to which Rubini owes his enduring
celebrity is the pure experiment he made about this time with
the Cactus grandiflorus. The Pathogenesis" published by
him in 1864 has been translated into all the languages, and at
present forms a valuable part of every treatise of pure Materia
Medica and of therapeutics.
As the only surviving member of the noble band of standard-
bearers in the cause of Homoeopathy in Italy, Dr. Rocco Rubini,
notwithstanding the obstacles in his path, continued with a
youthful ardor to do all in his power to advance the interests of
the science in whose name he had combatted for fifty years the
enemies aroused against it. When Rubini returned to Naples
in 1840, the physicians practicing Homoeopathy in that city
hardly exceeded half a dozen.
G
At the meeting of the World's Homoeopathic Convention of
1876, held in Philadelphia, Dr. Carroll Dunham, in his Presi-
dential Address, spoke of Dr. Rubini, saying that he had sent to
him letters of Hahnemann and some statements of the Camphor
cure of cholera. He also sent a number of copies of his book,
Statistica dei Colerici Curati Colla Sola Canfora in Napoli,
1854-65 Napoli, 1866.” These books were distributed free to
the members of the World's Convention. (World's Conv., vol.
2, p. 1087.)
"C
RUECKERT, THEODORE JOHANN. The Allgemeine
hom. Zeitung for August 18, 1885, contains the following: Dr.
Theodore Johann Rueckert, of Herrnhut, died of dysentery in
the 85th year of his life, August 6, 1885, at 2:30 o'clock A. M
With him passes away the last of the direct students of Hahne-
mann and the oldest of all the homeopathic physicians. By his
participation in the provings of drugs under Hahnemann's
guidance, he has left behind him a lasting monument, and by
his unswerving faith in the teachings of the Founder, and by the
lively interest for our cause which he evinced to the end of his
life, he has become to us a shining model. We wish to refer to
578
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
his last article, "Epilepsy," which appeared in the last number
of the Zeitung. So strong was his presentiment that he was ap-
proaching his long last sleep, that he called this article his swan
song. To him was granted the unusual favor of mental and
physical vigor, sufficient to permit him to continue his calling to
the end of his days.
He was the younger brother of Ernest Ferdinand Rückert.
(See p. 103.) (A. H. Z., vol. 82, p. 192. Hahn. Monthly, vol.
21, p. 79. Monthly Hom. Rev., vol. 29, p. 638.)
RUECKERT. Was in 1832 located at Camenz, Silesia. The
name is on the Zeitung and Quin lists.
RUPPIUS. In the Zeitung list of 1832, Ruppius' name ap-
pears as Hofrath in Altenburg; on Quin's list of 1834, it is
Aulic, councilor. He was practicing Homoeopathy as early as
1832. Kleinert mentions him as practicing in Altenburg.
SABATINI. Quin gives this name in a veterinary list ap-
pended to his list of physicians practicing Homœopathy in 1834.
He was then located at Mosciano, Italy.
SAGLIOCCHI, VINCENZO. Was a pioneer of Homo-
opathy in Italy. His name appears on the list of Dr. Quin pub-
lished in 1834, at which time he was practicing in Trentolo.
SANNICCOLA, GIOVANNI. Was a pioneer of Homo-
opathy in Italy. In Quin's list of 1834 he is mentioned as sur-
geon of the Civil and Military Hospital at Venafro.
SAYNISCH, LEWIS. Dr. Saynisch, a German, introduced
Homœopathy into Tioga county, Pa., about 1832. He was a
highly educated man, having graduated as an allopathic physi-
cian at a University in Germany, afterwards met Hahnemann
and during a discussion with him became converted to Homo-
opathy. He came from New York to Blossburg, Tioga couuty,
in 1832, where he practiced and taught Homœopathy until his
death, which occurred in the autumn of 1857. Dr J. P. Morris
said he was at one time associated with Dr. Ihm, the early
homœopathic pioneer of Philadelphia. Dr. Saynisch enjoyed
an enviable reputation, being considered the best physician in
that part of the State. He even went to New York State and
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
579
he was often called to visit the sick in Buffalo, Albany, Utica,
Syracuse, and other places in New York and Northern Pennsyl-
vania. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 759.)
SCHAFER. Was practicing Homœopathy in Vienna in
1832. His name appears in the Zeitung list. (Rapou, vol. 1,
pp. 263, 611.)
SCHALLER, RUDOLPH. Was practicing Homoeopathy
in Prague in 1832. His name is in the Zeitung list of that year.
The Zeitung notes his death: On the 21st of August, 1857, Dr.
Rudolph Schaller, in Prague. In a few months he was to have
celebrated his 50th Doctor Jubilee. (A. H. Z., vol. 55, p. 24.)
SCHEERING, VON. June 18, 1867. Ritter Dr. v. Scheer-
ing, of Petersburg, is dead.
Dr. Von Scheering's name appears both in the Zeitung list of
1832 and the Quin list of 1834. Bojanus says that Dr. Scheer-
ing was a convert of Adam, and having seen Adam's success in
the treatment with homoeopathic medicines of Egyptirn oph-
thalmia among the cadets at Orienbaum he tested it for himself
and his success was so great in the treatment of this painful dis-
ease that the Emperor Nicholas determined to test the practice
on a large scale with the purpose of introducing it into the
army. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 74, p. 24. World's Conv., vol. 2,
p. 247. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38, p. 306.)
SCHINDLER. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Silesia. The Zeitung list of 1832 locates him at Greifenberg, as
does Quin two years later. Rapou writes, in 1842, that he was
one of the best known Homœopaths in the city of Gotha; that
he practised some time in Greisenberg, where he was a very
active member of the Silesian Society. He prepared a memoir
on the diseases of the bones and on the administration of vac-
cine in the same manner as other medicines. According to
Schindler vaccination did not transmit, as has been said, the
scrofulous and psoric affectlons, but it excited and made mani-
fest the latent disposition which only became apparent and
active after the eruption of the vaccination had disappeared.
He counselled not to inoculate with the vaccine, but to give the
varioline internally as both preservative and curative. (Rapou,
vol. 2, p. 549)
580
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
SCHMAGER. His name appears in the Zeitung list of
1832. He was a veterinary and practised in Lahr in Baden.
SCHMIDT. His name appears on the list of contributors to
the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was a regi-
mental physician at Glatz in Silesia. The Zeitung and Quin
lists place him in Glatz.
SCHMIDT, GEORGE. When the Gumpendorf Hospital, in
Vienna, was first opened for Homœopathy in 1832, Dr. G.
Schmidt was the first homoeopathic physician. Under Dr.
Mayerhofer, and by advice of the Count Coudenhove, the
founder, there had been, under the rose, mixed treatment and
this continued until July, 1833, when Dr. Schmidt undertook
the charge. He treated the patients in strict accord to Homo-
opathy, but in deference to the law each patient had a bottle or
box of allopathic medicine by his bedside, and over his bed
there hung a prescription more or less long and complex.
Rapou, after giving the polemical views of Dr. Schmidt, says
that he used large doses not dynamized. He gave Nux
vomica in grain doses, or in a drop of the tincture. This pecu-
liar medication excited long and bitter disputes between him and
certain of his colleagues. In 1846 he published a book on the
subject of the dose. (Homopathsche Arzneibereitung und Gaben-
grosse, Wien, 1846. Rapou, vol. 1, pp. 293, 309, 341, 465. Brit
Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 24. World Conv., vol. 2, pp. 204, 220.)
SCHMIEDER. Was practising Homoeopathy in Leignitz,
Silesia, in 1832. His name is on the Zeitung and Quin lists.
SCHMOELE, WILHELM. Was a native of Germany and
came to the United States previous to 1834, and became a student
and assistant of Dr. George Bute. He finally graduated at the
Allentown Academy. In the early days of Homoeopathy in
Philadelphia he enjoyed a lucrative practice. He returned to
Germany in 1844 and spent four years in studying special
branches of medicine, particularly pathology and morbid an-
atomy, under Rokitansky and other pathologists. Returning to
Philadelphia, he assisted at the organization of the Penn Medi-
cal University in 1854, and developed the graded course offered
by that school, this being the first attempt to introduce this
method of study into the United States. Dr. Schmoele was one
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
581
It
of the first men in the country to advocate and labor for the
promulgation of the doctrine of the germ theory of disease.
has been impossible to discover the date of his death. (World's
Conv., vol. 2, p. 728.)
SCHMIT, ANTOINE. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829; in the list his name appears as body physician
to the Duke of Wurtemburg in Vienna. The Zeitung list of
1832 so locates him. Quin in the list of 1834 calls him Ducal
physician, Vienna, Lucca. Rapou writes: About 1821 the Prince
Royal of Wurtemburg went to Italy for his health and claimed
the attention of Dr. Necker, who completely cured him of his
chronic disease. The Prince, wishing to have a homoeopathic
physician attached to him, took with him a pupil of Necker, Dr.
Schmit. * * * * *
For many years the Duke of Lucca
declared himself a friend of Homœopathy; he furnished an
asylum to the young Dr. Attomyr, persecuted by the wrath of
the Vienna Medical Faculty. He also offered honorable posi-
tions to Drs. Necker and Antoine Schmit, whom he attached to
himself. Speaking of Homoeopathy in Vienna, Rapou writes:
About this time the Upper Ten of Vienna had taken into favor a
physician, competitor to Marenzeller, less experienced perhaps,
but also less enthusiastic; less sharp, and more affable to our
adversaries. It was Antoine Schmit, physician in ordinary to
the Duke of Lucca. In 1842 Dr. Schmit lived near the
Duke. To-day (1846) Sicily is in possession of a Royal Homœo-
pathic Academy legally qualified to confer the diploma of doctor.
On June 23, 1844, Andrea Barthali was made president with im-
pressive ceremonies. The diploma of corresponding member of
the Italian Royal Homœopathic Academy was sent to Ant.
Schmit, of Lucca, and to the principal homeopathic German
physicians, Trinks, Bonninghausen, Moritz Muller, Rümmel,
Gross, Hartmann, etc. Hahnemann thus mentions him in a
letter to Rümmel: "And what shall I say of Dr. Schmit, of Vieuna?
His appearance here was highly prized by me; our art has much
to expect from him. He was with me five evenings and afforded
me rare pleasure, until Mr. Schoppe's business with me rendered
it impossible for me to enjoy his society any longer." (Rapou,
vol. 1, pp. 131, 170, 195, 244, 249, 252, 258. "Life of Hahne-
mann,” p. 192.)
582
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1
SCHNIEBER. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Sorau, Prussia. The name is given both in the Zeitung list of
1832 and that of Quin of 1834.
SCHOBER. Was in 1832 practicing Homoeopathy in Leisnig,
Saxony. His name is given in the Zeitung list of homoeopathic
practitioners of that date. Quin also mentions him two years
later.
SCHROEN, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG.* Dr. Carl Herrich,
who parted from us in the first month of this year, was followed
into eternity by his dear friend and fellow-student, who like him
was thorough and faithful in his vocation, and both as physician
and as man was a person who inspired in all esteem and in many
ardent love and reverence, and whose memory will continue to
live blessed in large circles.
This friend was Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Schroen, royal district
physician at Hof, where he was born, April 28th, 1804, and died
on February 4th, 1854.
If the undersigned endeavors to express in words remembrance
of this excellent colleague in this journal, he must first of all
express his regret, that having a different circle of usefulness
from the deceased it has been granted him but rarely to come
into personal contact with the departed, and that, therefore, he
can hardly succeed in giving that vivid freshness and fidelity to
his picture with which it must stand before those who had the
good fortune of longer and closer association with him. As the
younger son of a commissary of justice formerly stationed at
Hof, Schroen attended the institutions of learning in his native
city. Even as a pupil in the Gymnasium (High School) there,
he devoted himself much to the natural sciences, especially to
mineralogy and botany, and accordingly when he went to study
at the University of Erlangen he devoted himself with all his
mind to the study of medicine. The students at that time were
animated with a fresh and living zeal, and the sciences-espe-
cially those connected with medicine-had lately received a new
*We think that it will be a benefit to our readers to reprint in its en-
tirety this necrology from the "Aerztliche Intelligenzblatt fuer Baiern,”
No. 13, which has been sent to us by a friend; for the article gives an hon-
orable testimony as well for our deeply lamented colleague as for the
author.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
583
impetus. In physiology the works of Johannes Mueller, which
struck out a new path, had appeared, and Schoenlen's doctrines
gave a new life to the exhausted mode of treating pathology.
An unusual number of talented young men were then collected
in our universities-the academic period of many of our most
eminent men who are now at work in science or in Church and
State falls into the middle of the years from 1820-1830. Schroen
took a most active part in this life rich in scientific development.
Distinguished by his gift of eloquence, by enlivening humor as
well as by his poignant wit, he stood in the first rank of the emi-
nent students, and all his university friends retain a lively re-
membrance of their quondam fellow student. From Erlangen
Schroen afterwards removed to Wuerzburg, where he was at-
tracted by Schoenlein, whose teachings he followed with a real
enthusiasm, and lastly he came to Munich, where he received
his diploma as doctor after defending his inaugural dissertation,
"De Digitali purpura." He had used for his dissertation the
results of a series of observations as to the effects of Digitalis ob-
served on himself. But, as he positively declares, he had then
as yet no idea of embracing that trend in medicine which he later
followed as practicing physician, and which we shall presently
mention. But these very observations made on himself seem to
have led him into that specific path, for he dated from the effects
of Digitalis "which at other times cures heart disease," the
origin of heart disease in himself, which he had to combat for
years, and which, as we shall see later on, was the cause of his
death.
After distinguishing himself during the acquisition of his
diploma, Schroen went for some time to Vienna, but returned
afterwards to his native land, and was first employed as quaran-
tine physician in the cholera cordon drawn at that time. In the
year 1833 he settled down as practicing physician in Hof, and
soon enjoyed a very extended practice. As practising physician
he early turned his attention to Homœopathy, and this was
caused not by any external circumstances, or from the desire for
gain, but from scientific conviction. He studied zealously and
thoroughly the literature treating of this curative method, and
soon coöperated himself to advance and develop it. In this he
by no means acted as a blind follower of Hahnemann; on the
contrary, he rejected most of the principles established by him,
584
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
especially his dosology, and merely accepted the therapeutic
principle of similia simillibus as established by Hahnemann, and
he believed in the local specific action of remedies. This, of
course, is not the place to discuss at any length the significance
and the propriety of this therapeutic tendency, but this we must
positively declare, that of all the objections usually made-more
or less justly-against the adherents of the homoeopathic school,
not one applies to our Schroen. His whole being was free from
all charlatanry, thoroughly acquainted with the whole of medi-
cine, as also with its older and its later literature, well versed in
physiology, and acquainted with all the adjutant means of
diagnosing, he rejected no well founded experience of any cura-
tive method, although he thenceforth by preference pursued his
How clearly he comprehended his own position is shown
by his treatise: "The Healing Processes of Nature and the
Curative Methods," which appeared in the year 1837. Rudolph
Wagner, in his "Encyclopedia and Methodology of Medical
Sciences," is fully justified in enumerating the name of Schroen
among the name of those homeopaths who belong to "the
better tendency." The result of this was that Schroen enjoyed
the fullest esteem of the physicians in both camps. This is
shown by his reception as a member of the Physico-Medical So-
ciety in Erlangen, and of the Société Médico-Chirurgicale, in
Bruges, on the one side, and his election as corresponding mem-
ber of the Homœopathic Society in the Grand Duchy of Baden,
and as an honorary member of the Hahnemannian Medical So-
ciety in London, on the other side.
own.
But Schroen not only enjoyed an unlimited confidence and
manifold recognition as a physician and as an adept in the
natural sciences, especially in mineralogy and entomology, but
he knew how to transfer his accuracy and penetration in observ-
ing and comprehending the things of nature, also to the judg-
ment and proper valuation of that which art forms in imitation
of nature; so that he was esteemed among his acquaintances as
a competent judge of the works of painting and of the plastic
arts, and even artists were wont to give a good deal of weight
to his taste and judgment. Interesting and entertaining in
social intercourse, so as to be surpassed by few, gifted with an
original and often very natural humor, precise and keen in the
style of his expressions, he was sought for as a companion, a
OF HOMEOPATHY.
585
sincere and faithful friend and unselfish and unwearied above
others in helping the poor and the rich. As a proof of his active
charity we may here mention a society founded and directed by
him in Hof for assisting poor, married lying in women; this
society is still prosecuting its blessed activity.
After Schroen had acted for 15 years as assistant of the royal
district-physician in Hof, after the latter retired last year,
Schroen was appointed in his place. The recognition of Schroen's
excellence as a forensic physician may be seen from the weight
ascribed to his reports and opinions by the juries. During his
last days he had to demonstate before them the result of arsenic
in the case of the poisoning of three persons whose corpses he
examined in this, as in all other cases, he thoroughly accom-
plished his duty. Returning sick from the court-room, he died
suddenly and in a manner of which he had long had forebod-
ings. The post mortem examination showed ossification of the
valves of the heart and a genuine aneurism of the heart, which
had burst.
Schroen leaves behind him a widow, née Palm from Erlangen,
whom he had married in 1833, and also four children.
Among his literary productions we would mention especially
the work already mentioned, the "Healing Processes of Na-
ture and the Curative Methods," 2 vols., Hof and Wunsiedel,
published by Grau, 1837; then "The Chief Doctrines of the
Hahnemannian Teaching, with Reference to Practice," Palm
Erlangen, 1834. Schroen had commenced his literary activity
in 1833 with an article printed in the Allg. hom. Zeit. (iii, 3),
"Something as to the strength of homoeopathic doses and their
repetition." Later on he repeatedly furnished articles for the
same journal, and for the journal, Hygea and for the "Ho-
mœopathische Vierteljahrsschrift," edited by Clotar Mueller and
Veit Meyer.—(Dr. Landgraf, in Bayrenth. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol.
13, p. 142. Kleinert, p. 230. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 47, p. 96.
Zeit. f. Hom. Klinik, vol. 3, p. 163. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 389, etc.)
SCHRETER, GUSTAV ADOLPH. Gustav Adolph Schréter
was born in Lentschau, Upper Hungary, in 1803. His father,
David Schréter, M. D., was for many years a respected allopathic
physician there. The son enjoyed the most careful education,
attending the Gymnasium (High School) there, after which, in
586
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1820, he went to study medicine in Vienna, where he received
his diploma in 1826. While visiting his parents, a two years'
scientific journey through Germany and France was mapped out
for the young physician, and his aged father especialiy recom-
mended to him the study of Homœopathy. Although at first,
with some reluctance, the young allopath obeyed his father's
wish, and in 1826 he journeyed to Leipzig to study Homœopathy
with Father Hahnemann himself. Being directed by him to the
doctors Schubert, Haubold, etc., he studied for some months
with restless zeal and continually increasing enthusiasm, the new
curative method. Schréter then visited his kinsman, a clergy-
man in Besigheim, Wurtemberg, but fell sick there, but under
his own homoeopathic treatment he soon recovered. He was no
less successful in curing several cases of disease in the family
where he was hospitably entertained. Through these success-
ful cures his fame was established as well in the town of Besig-
heim as in the surrounding country. His continually increas-
ing practice, the reports of extremely successful cures of persons
of low and of high estate naturally caused much disfavor, envy
and infestation on the part of the Wurtembergian physicians of
the old school; even prosecutions before the courts were not lack-
ing, but these were made of no effect through the admirers of
Homœopathy and influential statesmen of high position. It was
only owing to the love and devotion to Homoeopathy that
Schréter did not allow himself to be interrupted in his medical
activity which met with these difficulties, but he boldly persevered
and remained sedulously at work to assist with his medical coun-
sel the continually increasing number of patients from the town
and also from foreign parts.
But he desired to study all the systems then in existence in
medicine, and to have personal knowledge of their nature and
utility; he, therefore, in the year 1828, to the great regret of his
patients and admirers in Wurtemberg, left for Paris. But at the
close of the same year, taking to heart the proverb, extra Hun-
gariam non est vita," he returned to his home, where he first
settled as homoeopathic physician in Lentschau, and began to
practice under the best auspices.
Schréter's reputation as a successful homoeopathic physician
spread not only in his native town and in Upper Hungary, but it
even extended to the neighboring Galicia, and so it came that
(6
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
587
he was also called to Rzeszow to a Polish countess suffering from
carcinoma uteri, and to whom his allopathic colleagues who were
treating her had only allowed five more days to live. But under
his treatment the disease was gradually alleviated and the patient
was completely cured after going to Schréter at Lentschau, and
remaining there for two years.
In consequence of this successful cure, Schréter soon received
a pressing invitation from the Countess to remove to Lemberg,
the capital of Volhynia, so as to better serve the interests of
suffering humanity. Undecided, Schréter wrote to Hahnemann
to get his advice. The answer soon came
The answer soon came "that Schréter, as
the faithful disciple of Homœopathy, should introduce and
spread the new curative method in the interest of science and of
suffering human ty, especially in those countries in which no
ray of the truth had yet penetrated." Thus advised, he at
once set about obeying and executing this plain counsel. In the
June of 1831 he moved to the beautiful capital of Galicia, in
which hardly any one had even dreamed as yet of Homœopathy.
The cholera which was just then spreading in a violent form
in Lemberg, and which destroyed many lives, offered the newly
arrived physician a fair opportunity to let Homoeopathy be seen
in the purest light of truth. This glorious healing art proved
its efficacy during this destructive epidemic which withstood the
allopathic treatment. For while with physicians of the old
school very many, perhaps the majority, died, Schréter, who
was kept very busy, had only a small number of fatalities, and
these were mostly cases which from humanity and at the urgent
request of their friends he had taken up when they were al-
ready in a hopeless state. In consequence of these astonishing
successes Schréter's fame increased, and he was busy night and
day.
But after the extinction of the epidemic of cholera the envy
and jealousy of the allopathic physicians and apothecaries
awoke. They put their heads together and consulted how they
might get rid of this busy and therefore dangerous homoeopath.
Nothing was left untried; they even caused the relatives of the
patients who had died under Schréter's treatment to accuse him
before the magistrates as having caused their death through his
poisons. In the further course of these persecutions the sanitary
authorities even searched his house at various times to confiscate
588
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
his medicine chest; but these visitations were always betrayed
to Schréter in good time by his friends. He was even threatened
with the deprivation of his doctor's diploma. Thus everything
was done to oppose and destroy this humane and successful
physician.
In consequence of these frequent accusations, and of his being
condemned to pay fines, and wearied out by the writing of de-
fenses which, though so pressed for time, he had to attend to
himself, the hardly pressed martyr determined to emigrate to
America. But as soon as this news spread he was urged
with sincere and moving entreaties from his innumerable ad-
mirers and patients to change his determination and to remain
in Lemberg. But when he told them that without a diploma,
and this they threatened to take from him, he could not practise
any more in Lemberg, without Schréter's knowledge a petition
was sent to the Emperor of Austria signed by many hundreds
of respected and influential citizens of Lemberg.
On Schréter's birthday, the 1st of March, 1836, when a fair
circle of friends and admirers of Homœopathy was assembled for
dinner at his table, a statesman of high position accompanied by
several other gentlemen brought the jubilant news of the longed-
for success of the petition which had been communicated without
delay through private letters from Vienna. The Emperor had
allowed the practice of Homoeopathy and the permission of dis-
pensing their own medicines throughout the confines of the
Austrian monarchy. That the joy and jubilee over this victory
was unbounded may easily be comprehended.
This happy
birthday-present was soon followed (1836) by the official notifi-
cation of the Imperial Decree granting free practice and the
right of dispensing their medicines to homoeopaths. Schréter
celebrated now the triumph of the just cause, he was animated
with the gratifying and proud consciousness that through his
perseverance, endurance and patience, not only had Homoeopathy
been introduced in Galicia, but he was the fortunate cause which
secured for it legal recognition and a basis for future develop-
ment and diffusion.
But the many persecutions and worries, together with his
strenuous activity in his practice, soon undermined his health.
Although his aged father hastened to his assistance and assisted
the son in his practice till the father himself died ( in 1839), a
OF HOMEOPATHY.
589
threatening hæmorrhoidal disease had developed, which through
loss of blood made him anaemic, so that he had to occasionally
rest and refresh his weary body and mind. On this account he,
in company with his wife, made excursions every two or three
years, from which he always returned newly strengthened. In
the year 1837 he visited the springs at Græfenberg, and in 1849
he became acquainted with Schroth's Semmelkur, concerning
which he reported at the annual meeting on the 10th of August,
1851. (s. Allg. H. Z., vol. 42, Nos. 5, 7. )*
But what anew and most affected his health was a recurrence
of the epidemic of cholera in 1855. He was then not allowed a
moment of rest, no time for eating or sleeping, as he assisted
with equal readiness both the poor and the rich. His success
of 1831 was remembered and everyone wished to be treated by
him.
In the period following, and while Schréter with his wife was
making the provings of Thuja, his health was considerably
weakened by frequent protrusions of the varices of the anus and
repeated bleeding from the rectum; and there appeared a laxity
and weakness of the whole of the mucous membrane of the in-
testines, accompanied with many diarrhoeic evacuations, which
in their further development were followed even by a prolapsus
intestini recti. To these ailments were added after 1860 frequent
furuncles of all sizes on the nates and the perinæum as well as
a constant copious excretion of mucus, caused by a spasmodic
hawking and spitting, which sometimes was aggravated even to
vomiting.
Weakened in this manner, he received an apoplectic stroke on
the 20th of January, 1862;† this was, indeed, ameliorated after
five months' careful treatment, so that the limbs were gradually
restored to their former activity and only some heaviness of
speech remained.
To strengthen his body, he undertook in July, 1862, with his
* The Semmelkur consists in wrapping the patients up in wet sheets
daily, for weeks at a time, so as to sweat freely, with subsequent cooling
off. They are not allowed to eat hardly anything but stale wheat rolls
(Semmel) and dare not drink any water, at most a sip of wine.
† It would seem from the later dates given by Dr Kéler, as also from p.
48, that this ought to be 1863. making the first stroke on Jan. 20, 1863, the
second 17 months later, on June 23, 1864, and the last 31 (?) days later, on
July 21.-Translator, Mr. Tafel.
590
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
wife, an excursion to southern lands and to Switzerland, from
which, after an absence of 4½ months, he returned in a very much
improved condition.
Nevertheless, no particular value or lasting duration could be
ascribed to this seeming phase of amelioration. Accordingly,
after a lapse of seventeen months after the first stroke, on the 23d
of June, the paresis was repeated without any known cause, in
the form of hemiplegia lateris sinistri, but without affecting the
brain at the same time. After a few days the condition of the
invalid was again improved, only the heavy speech and the
weakness of the intestinal canal remaining.
We counted only 31 days after the second attack, when on the
21st of July the cup was filled to the brim and emptied; while
surrounded by the joyous circle of all the members of the family
there followed a third stroke in the form of an apoplexia cerebrelis,
which, taking away his consciousness, caused him to fall into a
deep soporous sleep from which our Schréter, according to the
dispensation of Providence, should no more awake in this life.
On the 24th of July this noble man and rare philanthropist
breathed forth his spirit, gently and tranquilly, like an expiring
flame, after having wrought as physician for nearly 38 years and
having lived in a happy wedlock for 34 years..
An innumerable multitude of every estate, age and confession
accompanied the mortal remains to their final resting place.
Peace and reverence to his ashes,
DR. V. KÉLER.
Hering says: Schroeter, one of the provers most objected to by
the purificators, next to Nenning, proved Borax on himself, and
also collected symptoms observed in sick children and cor-
responding to the other symptoms of Borax. He published the
following: “No. 4. Very anxious when riding quickly down
hill; it is as if it would take his breath away, which was never
the case before.
"5. The child, when dancing it up and down, is afraid; when
rocking it in the arms, it makes an anxious face during the
motion downward. (Observed the first three weeks.)"
These two observations strengthen each other. Hence, lectur-
ing on Borax in Allentown, in 1835, the attention of the
students was called to the fact. There was nothing like it in
our whole materia medica. * ** This one symptom of
OF HOMEOPATHY.
591
Borax has been the source of an infinite number of cures in this
country.
Rapou says: In 1840 Dr. Gustav Schroeter studied the acid
mineral waters of Bartfeld, in Upper Hungary. He published
a pathogenesis of 130 symptoms observed upon three healthy
persons- —a man of 37, a woman of 27, and a child of 9 years.
(Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 69, pp. 48–104. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 61.
World's Con., vol. 2, p. 204.
Am. Hom. Obs., vol. 5, p. 39.)
SCHUBART. According to the Zeitung list of persons prac-
ticing Homœopathy in 1832, he was at that time in Arnstadt,
Saxony. His name is also on Quin's list of 1834.
SCHUBERT, ADOLPH. Was a contributor to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829. The Zeitung list locates him, in 1832, at
Leipzig, as does Quin in 1834. A list of his articles in the
Zeitung may be found in "Kleinert's History of Homœopathy,"
page 147. (Kleinert, p. 147.)
SCHUBERT. According to the Zeitung list of 1832 and the
Quin list of 1834, Dr. Schubert was in practice at Hirschberg
in Silesia. The Zeitung, in a note dated Leipzig, July 3, 1874,
announces: Dr. Schubert, of is dead. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 89,
p. 16.)
SCHULER. Dr. Schuler, in 18-, in Archives de la Medi-
cine Homœopathique, gave the result of his first experiments in
Homœopathy as follows: During nearly a quarter of a century
I had followed the banner of Allopathy. I had employed much
time and money in studying its frequent transformations, with-
out finding a thread which could guide me in the labyrinth of
medicine; without power to unravel the mystery by which cures
were effected. * * * That I might escape from this perplex-
ity I had for a long time turned my attention to Homœopathy;
but the cry of reprobation which arose against it, and the appa-
rent paradox of many of its principles, particularly that of the
infinitesimal doses, turned me from the study of it and retained
me a faithful adherent of the old method. But my doubts and
my fidelity were finally strongly shaken, and it was experience
that produced this effect.
He was, in 1832, practicing in Stolberg, in the Hartz. His
name appears in the Zeitung list of 1832 and in that of Quin in
1834.
592
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
SCHWARZE, CARL FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH. In our
last number we already announced the decease of one of the
oldest practicing homoeopaths, Dr. C. F. Chr. Schwarze. Some
data with respect to his life will be welcomed by his friends and
acquaintances.
He was born on the 26th of July, 1788, at Gardelegen, Altmark
of Prussia, where his father was organist; he received his school-
ing in an elementary school and in the Gymnasium (High
School) of his native town, and then in his fifteenth year he at-
tended the Pepinière Institute in Berlin and then the university
then existing at Frankfurt, a. d. O., in order to complete there
his medical studies. He there received his diploma as doctor in
1809. Owing to the political changes of the time through which
his native town had become a part of the newly formed kingdom
of Westphalia, he went from Frankfurt to Loebau, in the king-
dom of Saxony, and in the year 1813 he was chosen as the town
physician. He gained for himself universal love and recognition
in the city, and far and wide around it, for his self-sacrificing
activity during the war, especially in directing the military hos-
pitals, and during the epidemic of typhus fever which raged.
The sanitary college at Dresden repeatedly distinguished him by
giving him commissions in juridicial and political medicine, and
frequently requested his opinion. In Loebau, as also in Lusatia
in general, he instituted many reforms and regulations which
paved the way for a reform in sanitary affairs, especially with
reference to vaccination and midwifery, as well as in the sani-
tary supervision of markets, in which he combined a rare intelli-
gence with a characteristic energy. In the year 1822 he was ap-
pointed royal counselor by his Majesty, the king of Saxony, and
then removed to Dresden, where he was distinguished by the
particular favor of the late Kreyssig. In the year 1828, after
having prepared himself by long-continued study, he proclaimed
his conversion to Homœopathy. In 1840 he was appointed medi-
cal counselor by the Prince of Reuss-Schleiz. In the year 1859
he celebrated, as we reported at the time, the fifty years' jubi-
lee of his doctorship on which occasion he was distinguished by
His Majesty, the King of Saxony, by the knightly cross of the
Order of Albrecht.
Though he passed through repeated and severe attacks of ill-
ness, his good constitution always triumphed, so that he could
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
593
always again attend to his practice which he loved, until in the
last year asthmatic respiratory troubles, rising from bronchial
catarrh and emphysema, compelled him to retire from practice,
until the sufferer was finally released after seven months' illness
on the 19th of May, 1862, in his 74th year.
Besides single articles in various medical journals, there ap-
peared a larger work from his pen in 1836 and one which is often
cited, it is entitled "Dr. C F. Schwarze; Homœopathic Cures,
with Remarks on the Size of Doses and Their Repetition." (12½
sheets.)
Fortune, which ever favored him, also attended him in his
family. He leaves behind him Dr. Schwarze, the royal General
Attorney of Saxony, who is well known all through Germany
and is knight of various orders, etc., as also the homoeopathic
physician, Dr. Theodor Schwarze, Jr.
We cannot here suppress the painful fact that the number of
homœopathic physicians in Saxony is steadily diminishing, and
that besides the exceptional cases where the sons of deceased
colleagues follow their fathers no substitute appears. This is
the more to be regretted, as the people of Saxony who are ever
in the van in all reform movements, are also very favorable to
Homœopathy, of which fact we have almost daily demonstration
through letters, both from neighboring and from remoter regions.
He was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. He
was then located at Dresden. Both the Zeitung list of 1832 and
Quin's of 1834 place him at that city. It was Schwarze who was
editor with Helbig of that curious journal the Heraclides. Rapou
says that the Doctor Hofrath Schwarze is an old practitioner who
followed Allopathy for twenty years and has been for a short
time only a homoeopath. He is little known beyond Dresden,
but is recognized by society in that city. He is a man full of
enthusiasm and who did not seem to have the sang froid usually
seen among the Germans. He spoke to me much about his
admirable success in epilepsy which I find too marvelous to give
here a place. But I mention one remark which other physicians
have noted, that when in pleuritic affections Bryonia will not
help Sabadilla will always cure. (Zeit. fuer hom. Klinik., vol. II,
p. 89. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 91, 95.)
SCHWEIKERT, GEORG AUG. BENJ. G. A. B. Schweik-
rt was born at Aukulm, a suburb of Zerbst (in Anhalt-Zerbst),
*
594
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
where his father was pastor, on the 25th of September, 1774.
From his father and from his mother (a niece of the celebrated
G. G. Richter. professor of medicine at Goettingen) he received
his first instruction; then he attended the Bartholomäi school
at Zerbst till the year 1789. From here, when 15 years old, he
was brought to the cathedral school at Magdeburg. In the year
1794 he was entered at the university of Halle, where to satisfy
the wishes of his father he for two terms studied theology; but
he gave this up when his father died. He then entered the
university of Jena, to devote himself to the study of medicine,
to which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. There he lived in
the house of his uncle, the celebrated professor of anatomy and
surgery, Loder, who, after Schweikert had finished his prepara-
tory medical studies, accepted him as famulus in his clinical
lectures and as assistant in his private practice. At the same
time he enjoyed the particular favor and attention of Hufeland,
who was here as professor of Materia Medica and as clinical in-
structor. That all this was not without its influence on the
studious youth is shown by the many-sided and universal
knowledge of our colleague Schweikert. He received his degree
on the 5th of October, 1799, after writing a dissertation "De
pollutionibus," which he was excused from printing. Soon after
this he married the widow of the late court-surgeon Koehler,
and settled down as practicing physician in Zerbst. But as his
wife died soon afterwards, and thus he came to dislike living at
Zerbst, he went, in 1801, at the recommendation of Hufeland
and Loder, to the university of Wittenberg as instructor in
obstetrics. Here he wrote a dissertation concerning "The ac
cidents which necessitate the loosening of the after birth by
operation." Soon afterwards he here married a second time.
Now he was appointed as city-physician and city-obstet-
rician of Wittenberg, and in 1807 became a member of the
magistracy. In the years 1812 and 1813 he became director
and surgeon-in-charge of the French military hospitals.
In these he labored fearlessly with unintermitting zeal for
the patients, although many of his
his colleagues were
snatched away by the murderous war-typhus; he exposed
himself to many of these dangers, although, in spite of his
many services, he frequently experienced ingratitude. On ac-
count of his patriotic mode of thinking and his free speech he
OF HOMEOPATHY.
595
was called before a French court martial and condemned to
death, and he was only saved by the fact that the Prussians
captured Wittenberg two days before the date fixed for his
execution. This was also the reason why he, immediately
after the war of liberation, returned to his native country and
settled down at Grimma, where he was appointed city-physi-
cian and teaching physician in the Fuerstenschule of that
place. Here he first came to know, in the year 1820, the Hahne-
mannian writings, and although not particularly attracted by
them he diligently studied them-because he thought it his
duty to make himself acquainted with all the phenomena in the
medical domain; he also instituted experiments in accordance
with these writings, and these satisfied him so well that from
his great success in practice he easily pardoned the somewhat
defective theory. At this time also it was that he sought the
advice of a homoeopathic physician for himself, after he had
consulted his most celebrated colleagues on account of an
abdominal disease contracted through the strain of his active
life; in spite of all remedies prescribed by his colleagues he had
obtained no alleviation, much less a cure. But after he regained
his former health in a short time, by a simple homoeopathic
remedy, he studied Hahnemann's
Hahnemann's writings with greater
diligence, he also sought the personal acquaintance of Hahne-
mann, who was then living in Coethen, and soon became his
most intimate friend. In the year 1825, after he had been treat-
ing his patients a whole year with homoeopathic remedies, he
publicly declared his conversion to the new method by an article
in Stapf's Archiv. (vol. 4, No. 1): "A Voice and Experience
in Favor of Homœopathy, in Form of a Letter Directed to Dr.
Mueller in Leipzig." Soon after this he wrote: "Materials for
a Materia Medica; this was an attempt to systematize the
Hahnemannian Materia Medica. The work remained uncom-
""
pleted.
He also contributed a number of important articles for the
Archiv. fuer die hom., Heilkunst (see vol. iv., No. 3; vol. vi.,
No. 2; vol. vii., No. 1.)
From 1830-36 he edited the Zeitung fuerd, homeopathische
Heilkunst, by which he undoubtedly most contributed to the
diffusion of this curative doctrine, and from thenceforward be-
came the most doughty and efficient champion in the contest
that then developed.
596
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
In the year 1834 he went to Leipzig to undertake the direc-
tion of the Homœopathic Institution there, where he found
a notable sphere of operations and remained to the year
1836. By the medication of several Silesian patrons of high
estate, whom he had treated successfully from Leipzig, Schweik-
ert, by a cabinet order, received the license to practice in the
Prussian States, and following a number of requests and prom-
ises he took up his residence in Breslau, where, however,
through the pressure of his work, he was compelled to give up
the Homeopathische Zeitung.
Only a few hours before his unexpected death Schweikert
had just visited his patients and had enlivened and interested.
them by his wonted animating conversation, when at 3 P. M.
on December, 1845, an attack of apoplexia nervosa suddenly
put an end to his active life. May he now attain to that re-
pose for which he so often longed and which he, nevertheless,
never attained!
Besides the dissertation mentioned above, Schweikert had
written the following:
I.
1. "Successful Treatment of the Erysipelas of New-born Chil-
dren," in Struve's Triumph der Heilkunst, vol. iii., div. i, para-
graph 19. 1802.
2. “A Case of Poisoning by Opium on the First Day of Life
Cured," paragraph 32.
3. "Discussion of the Article in the Reichs-Anzeiger," 1804,
No. 30: "Something Concerning the Alleviation of Difficult
Births," by H. T. Bruenninghausen, in the Reichs Anzeiger, 1804,
No. 29.
4. "Remarks with Respect to the Remarks of Mr. Anna, Con-
cerning Prof. Froriep's Phantom of Papier Maché" (in Lucina,
vol. ii., St. 2, No. 4) in Siebold's Lucina, vol. iii, St. 2, 1806,
art. 3.
66
5. Observations of a Hydrops Hyatids, with a Post-mortem
Examination," in Loder's Journal fuer Chirurg., vol. iv., 1806.
We have yet to add to the necrology of Dr. Schweikert which
appeared in vol. xxxi, No. 21 of the Zeitung that a collection
was raised among the patients and friends of the deceased in
order to place a monument on his grave. The monument con-
sists of a cube with a pedestal and top; on its four sides it is
inlaid with marble slabs, on which are engraved the following
inscriptions:
OF HOMEOPATHY.
597
I. Georg August Benjamin Schweikert, Dr. Med. et Chir. and
Homœopathic Physician.
II. Born at Zerbst, Sept. 25th 1774, died at Breslau, Dec.
15th, 1845.
III. Dedicated by his friends.
IV. Maluerim offendere Veris, quam placere adulando.
He was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at
which time he was practicing in Grimma, Saxony. The Zeitung
list of 1832 and Quin's of 1834, locate him in Grimma. Dr.
Schweikert was of the Old Guard of Leipzig. It was he who
after the meeting of the Central Union in 1832, in Leipzig, pro-
posed to use the funds at hand to establish a homœopathic hos-
pital at Leipzig. He volunteered to take charge of the new hos-
pital free of remuneration and to remove from Grimma to Leip-
zig for the purpose. Mueller had converted Schweikert to
Homœopathy some time before this. But after the hospital had
been opened, Schweikert was, on the resignation of Dr. Moritz
Mueller, elected director at a salary of 400 thalers. This was in
1833.
Rapou says: At Breslau, capital of Silesia, Homœopathy was
firmly implanted by Georg Aug. Schweikert, ex-director of the
hospital of Leipzig. He was called to that city by many nota-
ble citizens, his clients, and on account of the permission of the
Government (which had not happened before that time) to dis-
pense his own remedies. Schweikert had established, in 1830,
the journal called Zeitung für homoöpathische Heilkunst, which
he published for six years, when the demands of his immense
practice forced him to give it up. He died about the end of
1845.
The British Journal for July, 1847, notes that Schweikert was
born at Zerbst, September 25, 1774, and died at Breslau Decem-
ber 15, 1845. One of Hahnemann's earliest disciples, he did
much to advance the cause of Homoeopathy by the success of
his practice and his numerous writings; he was distinguished
for his learning, originality, and untiring zeal.
Albrecht thus speaks of Schweikert: He ranked among the
most eminent advocates of Homoeopathy, and, to a certain ex-
tent, with justice. He was a singular character, and his experi-
ence in the practice of medicine was most remarkable. At
first, devoted heart and soul to Allopathy, experimenting and
598
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
curing by purgatives, emetics, bleeding, leeches, bucketfuls of
infusion of Peruvian bark (in scarlatina), the towns of Witten-
berg and Grimma not only experienced, but suffered, from his
practice. Suddenly he abandoned his allopathic principles, re-
signed his office of physician of a public school, and, like a genu-
ine Paul, he became a convert to Homoeopathy. (World's Con.,
vol. 2, pp 18, 27. Klinert, 123, 135, 146, 149. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
31, p. 321; vol. 33, p.32. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 154, 524, 691. Brit.
Jour. Hom., vol. 5. p. 399. Archiv: f. d. hom. Heilk., vol. 23, pt.
2, p. 169. Bradford's Hahnemann. p. 308. Biograpisches
Denkmal. Fischer's Trans. of same, p. 45.)
SCHWEICKERT, JULIUS. In the Zeitung list of homo-
opathic physicians, published in 1832, appears the name of
Julius Schweickert, St. Petersburg. Quin also gives the name.
The Hom. Klinik thus mentions him: On the 25th of April,
1876, died, after prolonged sufferings in Moscow, my brother, the
Imperial Russian Counselor, Julius Schweikert, M.D. He was the
oldest son of Dr. Georg August Benjamin Schweikert, who ren-
dered such great services to Homœopathy and to its diffusion.
Born in Wittenberg in the year 1807, he in 1815 accompanied our
father to Grimma, in the kingdom of Saxony, where the latter
had been appointed as city physician as well as physician to the
Royal School (Fürstenschule) there. After receiving his High
School education at this institution, he entered the university of
Leipzig, where he studied medicine. Even during the last two
years of his study he acted as the visiting assistant in the homoeo-
pathic practice of the genial Dr. Moritz Mueller, busy in a widely
extended practice. In 1831 he received his degreee. His dis-
sertation: "Quæstioneo de salutari methodi homeopathica in mor-
bis curandis effectu, exemplis prosperrimi successus confirmato."
("Questions concerning the salutary effect of the homoeopathic
method in curing diseases, confirmed by examples of the most
brilliant success"), caused a great stir in the university of Leip-
zig, because it was the first time that Homoeopathy was there
publicly defended in a dissertation. A great number of severe
cases of disease cured by homoeopathic treatment, which the
author had witnessed either in his father's practice or more
especially in that of Dr. Moritz Mueller, was herein communi-
cated. After having thoroughly studied Homoeopathy also theo-
retically, and after having had the opportunity of witnessing its
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
599
excellent success for several years by the sickbed, at the recom-
mendation of the homoeopathic physician, Dr. Herrmann, in
Petersburg, he was offered the position of physician-in ordinary
with the Russian Kurakin in the Government of Orel in South
Russia. In the spring of 1872 he entered on this position and
treated most successfully for five years the prince already well-
advanced in years, his numerous family and all the inhabitants.
of his extensive domains. He was also frequently consulted in
cases of disease among the neighboring noble proprietors of
estates, and was finally prevailed upon by them to settle in
Moscow, where most of them were accustomed to pass the greater
part of the year. It was, therefore, not to be wondered at, that
from the time that he settled in Moscow he enjoyed the greatest
confidence and an extended patronage. But he was also exposed
to many infestations on the part of the allopaths, so that the
proverb proved true also in his case: "Many foes, much honor."
Soon he was appointed physician to the Agricultural College.
In the year 1842 he was on imperial order appointed physician
in the imperial foundling hospital, and in 1843 he received the
rank of Titular Counselor. Soon after by confirmation of the
Minister of Education, while retaining his other positions, he
was appointed physician in the Gymnasium (High School) of
the nobility, with the title of Assessor of the College In the
year 1854 he became physician at the Imperial Widows' Asylum
and received the Buckle as a reward of fifteen years' unblemished
zeal in the service. In 1856 he was appointed Aulic Counselor,
and at his request he was set free from service at the Gymnasium.
In 1857 he received the Order of St. Stanislaus of the 3d rank. In
1862 he received the Order of St. Anna; in 1865 the Order of St.
Stanislaus of the 2d rank; in 1872 the Order of St. Stanislaus,
with the Crown; in 1875 at last he had the pleasure of receiving
the Order of the Holy Wladimir, as a reward of thirty-five years'
service.
-
Ever since his removal to Moscow, my brother had made every
effort to secure the means for founding a homœopathic hospital.
Since all his endeavors were in vain, one of his patients, Prince
Leonid Galitzin, well-known and highly esteemed for his charity
and noble sentiments, determined to establish a homoeopathic
hospital at his own expense and to entrust its medical manage-
ment to my brother. The most brilliant results were shown in
600
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
this institution. During two epidemics of cholera the severest
cases were treated here, no patient, no matter how hopeless his
condition, was rejected, while the reception of such severe cases.
is frequently refused in many other hospitals. I am sorry to say
that this institution, so blessed in its results, had to be closed
after the death of the prince, owing to a lack of means.
This disappointment and the failure to see this institution, the
darling of his fancy and the object of all his care, grow up to
great proportions caused him the greatest sorrow. From the
side of the opponents there was developed a strong opposition to
this hospital, the papers contained the most virulent attacks upon
it, revolting from their untruthfulness, but no defense either
direct or indirect, either in Moscow or in Petersburg, was received
This mortification was so great that he never quite overcame
it. In the last year he observed in himself the symptoms of
diabetes, and he became weaker and weaker, and ever since.
November he was unable to attend to his practice. The most
careful nursing by his wife and his daughters did not avail to
ward off inexorable death, and he finally succumbed to his suffer-
ings, universally esteemed, loved and lamented. (Zeit. f. hom.
Klinik, vol. 25, þ. 151.)
SCHYRMEIER. Was, in 1832, practicing at Emmendingen
in Baden. His name appears on the Zeitung directory of 1832.
SCOTT, GEORGE MCKENZIE. The Homeopathic Re-
view for May, 1887, contains the following: Dr. Scott died at
Stonebridge Park, Willesden, on the 11th of April, 1887, aged
82. His original intention in studying medicine was that he
thought it would be a great aid to his usefulness as a clergy-
man, which was the profession he had resolved to adopt. Whilst
travelling on the continent he made the personal acquaintance
of Hahnemann, and was so much struck with the scientific
character of his system that he resolved henceforth to devote
himself to its practice and propagation. He took his degree at
Glasgow in 1836 and delivered a course of lectures on Homo-
opathy in that city. He was the author of several works and
papers on Homœopathy and the History of Medicine which ap-
peared in the British Journal of Homeopathy and the Homœ-
opathic Times. He will be best remembered by the essay which
gained the prize offered by the Parisian Homœopathic Society
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
601
on this theme: "A Logical and Experimental Demonstration
that it is by Homœopathy Alone that the Principles and Ma-
chinery of the Science and Art of Medicine Have Attained a
Definite Foundation." This masterly essay contained original
and well-argued views, and was published in the British Journal
of Homœopathy, Vol. 6. Dr. Scott also translated for the British
Journal several of Hahnemann's minor writings. All who had
the happiness to know Dr. Scott were charmed with his gentle
manners and his earnest and fascinating conversation. He had
long retired from practice before his last illness which eventual-
ly assumed the form of general paralysis.
Dr. Scott introduced Homœopathy into Glasgow. An inter-
esting letter from Dr. Scott was published in the British Journal
in October, 1849, on the employment of auxiliaries, and from
which we quote:
TO THE EDITORS OF THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY.
Gentlemen :-If you think the following observations calcu-
lated to be useful, I shall be happy to see them inserted in the
Journal; if they appear adapted only to keep up unprofitable
discussion, pray sentence them to the just doom of all such com-
munications.
In the July number of the fourth Vol. of the Journal occurs a
correspondence between Drs. Guinness, Henderson and Drys-
dale, and in the October number a letter from Dr. Walker to the
editors, on the question whether a homeopathic physician is at
liberty to treat a patient allopathically "at his own request;"
and in more recent numbers have appeared communications
on an allied subject, but in a different form, viz.: The propriety
of employing certain allopathic auxiliaries.
Now, though these two questions are widely and essentially
different, I apprehend that they may be resolved by one and the
same consideration-that is, by simply enlarging to a universal
rule of duty that which is stated, in the editors' note to Dr.
Walker's letter, as an exceptional case: "We can conceive that
the case may occur in which a surgeon's duty as a man is
superior to his duty as the partisan of a special therapeutic
truth." Now, for my part, I cannot conceive a case where it is
otherwise. We are bound constantly to remember our gradua-
tion oath, "to recommend that which we believe to be best for
the patient;" and, therefore, whenever consulted we are held
602
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
by the most solemn duty to dismiss every party question, every
question of personal interest or reputation, and to consider what,
in this particular case and in these particular circumstances, is
the best thing to do or to advise. Let this be our constant rule
and guide, and then our hands are free. If we adopt any other
guide-as that of consistency, party spirit, or self interest, we
instantly degrade ourselves into sectarians, and instead of hold-
ing the position of true physicians, guided as we believe by the
one only curative law (a law which may have proclaimed its
existence by its results, where we may not have been able to
trace its characteristic feature), we become the members of a
small and (if thus influenced) a very unworthy sect. But I
have never acknowledged, and I trust I never shall acknowledge,
Homœopathy to be a sectarian doctrine;-if I discover it to be
so, I hope I shall have grace to relinquish it.
This appears to be the real and only theoretical answer to the
question; but the practical application of it to individual cases
may not be free from difficulty.
I remember having proposed the question to the Venerable
Founder of our method (whom we, a disjointed band, follow at
so great an interval and with such tottering and unequal steps),
whether in any case we ought to resort to bleeding? He answered,
with his wonted animation, "Jamais! Jamais!" and in further
conversation on the subject he came to the conclusion that if the
homoeopathic physician could not dispense with this operation,
"C'est un mauvais homoeopathe." And here lies the whole
truth of the matter; it is our deficient knowledge and unskillful
application of the homœopathic method and resources that keep
us in difficulty-"Nous sommes de mauvais homœopathes,
and the deeper we feel it and the more frankly we own it, the
better. I do not mean to insinuate that those who adopt means
called allopathic are inferior to those who do not; far from it;
my impression is rather the reverse, because the former are less
likely to be sectarian than the latter; my practice certainly is
guided by no such conviction; but I think we are taught by
every day's experience to walk with increasing humility and to
treat with increasing respect and courtesy those who have not
received what we reckon the universal law of cure, but whose
resources we are constrained, from time to time, to borrow.
And, in general, when practicable, I would suggest it to be
در
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OF HOMOEOPATHY.
603
highly expedient, when our methods fail, and we are in con-
quence inclined or rather constrained to adopt others, that we
should consign the case to a practitioner of the ordinary school,
who, by reason of frequent use, is much more likely to handle
his weapons skillfully than we who take them up merely oc-
casionally and as a last resort.
I remain, gentlemen, yours very truly,
G. M. SCOTT.
World's Conv., vol. 2, p.
Glasgow, July 12, 1849.
(Mo. Hom. Rev., vol. 31. p. 319.
107. Brit. Jour Hom., Oct., 1849.)
SEIDEL. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy in Leipsic. In the
Zeitung list of 1832 the name is given, and he is located in the
Oberlausitz, or Upper Lausatia, but in the Quin list of 1834 his
residence is given as Leipsic, and he is mentioned as chief physi-
cian and director of the Leipsic Hospital. (Kleinert, p. 200.)
SEIDER. Dr. Seider was practicing Homoeopathy in Wishni
Wolotschok, in Russia. His name appears in the Zeitung list
of 1832, and Dr. Quin in 1834 also mentions him. During the
cholera epidemic of 1832 Dr. Seider treated at Wishni Wolot-
schok 202 cholera patients. Of these, he treated in the allo-
pathic manner 93, of whom 69 died. He treated homoeopathi-
cally 109 cases, and of these but 23 died. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol.
I, p. 58.)
SEITHER. According to the Zeitung list he was practicing
at Oppenau, Baden, in 1832.
SELLDEN. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Sweden. He was a surgeon-major, and Leidbeck says that he
retired on a pension, preferring that to the wearisome annoy-
ances inevitably attending a private homœopathic practice in
Sweden. (World's Hom. Conv., vol. 2, p. 342.)
SEUBER. Was a Russian physician of Wishni Wolotschok,
who, in the cholera epidemic of 1831, treated 209 cases; of these
93 absolutely refused to be treated homeopatically and were
given allopathic treatment-69 died; 116 were treated homoeo-
pathically, and only 23 died. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 258.)
SIEGEL, FRANZ. According to the Zeitung list he was
practicing at Karlsruhe, in Baden, in 1832.
604
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
SIEGRIST. Was one of the contributors to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was practicing Homoeopathy
in Basle, Switzerland. His name also appears in the lists of the
Zeitung and Quin. It is to Dr. Siegrist that Dr. Henry Det-
willer, of Penna., was indebted, in 1830, for the gift of a com-
plete library of homoeopathic publications, with the Archiv. of
Stapf, and homoeopathic medicines. They had been college
friends in Germany. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 775.)
SIMON, LEON. May 13, 1867. Léon Simon (pere), one of
the oldest and most eminent homoeopathic physicians of Paris, is
dead, at the age of 68. Dr. Simon's name is also in the Quin
list of 1834.
Another of the early disciples of the illustrious Hahnemann
has been suddenly called away from the scene of his earthly
labor. On the night of the 21st of April, Dr Léon Simon died
suddenly. He was buried on the 23d; the respect in which he
was universally held in Paris was testified by the large number
of gentlemen, ecclesiastics and members of religious orders, who
followed his corpse to the cemetery, to render their last homage
to a man who, during his long career, had been equally noted
for his devotion and his scientific attainments.
At the tomb Dr. Jousset, president of the Homoeopathic Medi-
cal Society of France, delivered the following short address:
GENTLEMEN: It is but a very few days since Dr. Léon Simon,
in full health, sat with us at the anniversary banquet in honor
of Hahnemann, and to-day we have met together to follow him
to his last home. This unexpected stroke has in no way sur-
prised physicians, accustomed as they are to see death strike his
victims in so many different modes; but it profoundly afflicts the
children, the disciples, and the friends of Dr. Léon Simon.
In the midst of our affliction two circumstances console us.
The first is, that the career of Dr. Léon Simon has been one of
great usefulness. How many men arrive at their last hour with-
out the power to bear the testimony that they have fulfilled their
career and have fought the good fight! An enterprising spirit,
an ardent nature, a firm character, Dr. Léon Simon was born for
profound convictions. He was one of the first who adopted the
reform of Hahnemann; and consecrated his whole life to the
propagation of this doctrine.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
605
His public life, his discussions in the learned societies, his
essays in the medical journals, his works, all bear witness to his
ardor for the defence of the truths which he had embraced.
Dr. Léon Simon was a wrestler whom death seized in the midst
of his combat. Well, I have no hesitation in saying, that to
generous spirits it is of all deaths the one most to be desired.
The second circumstance which consoles us is that Dr. Léon
Simon was a Christian. This man, who passed his life in doing
good, in spreading truth, and in exercising charity towards the
sick, was a practical Christian; he was one whom death could
never surprise, because he was always ready. It is therefore
with confidence that we are able to say, adieu, Léon Simon,
adieu.
We hope in a future number to be able to give a short memoir
of Dr. Léon Simon, who was one of the first to propagate Home-
opathy in France.
It was not only as an able physician that this eminent man,
whose loss Homoeopathy has to deplore, ought to be remem-
bered, he was also remarkable as an orator and distinguished as
a writer.
Léon-Francois-Adolphe Simon was born at Blois on the 27th
of November, 1798.
His parents, who were honorable tradespeople, had the laud-
able ambition to give their young son an education which
should fit him, at a later period, to choose among the different
professions that for which he shewed the greatest aptitude.
His vocation called him to the study of medicine, and he com-
menced his career in the hospital of his native town.
He went to Paris in 1817, and after lengthened study took
his doctor's degree on the 22nd of April, 1822. His thesis was
brilliant and gave great promise from its elegant facility of
language.
At this epoch all men were infatuated with the doctrines of
the illustrious Broussais. Our young doctor was taken with
them at first, but very soon his scrupulously careful observation
put him on his guard against a system of therapeutics so san-
guinary and so uniform. Nosography had still its nomenclature,
and, in consequence, its classes, its genuses, and its species; but
therapeutics only recognized the lancet, the leeches and its diet-
ings all carried to a deplorable excess. All indications lost
606
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
themselves in the bleedings and in the strangest illusions of low
diet. Alterations in treatment consisted only in the greater or
less quantity of blood to be taken, and the only variety allowed,
in diet, was that of more or less gum added to the water. A
method so uniform, so little conceivable as coming from a man of
such gigantic talent as Broussais, could not stand the test of a
scrupulously careful observer of excellent judgment and hard
logic. The young doctor was very soon disenchanted. The
celebrated innovator very soon lost a choice disciple. Happily
his taste for serious labor soon compensated Léon Simon for the
void which the loss of belief in Broussais' doctrine had left in
his mind. He sated his ardor for work by participation in the
editorship of the Bulletin of Sciences of M. de Férussac, and upon
that of the Journal des Progrès, conducted by M. Buchez.
It was at this time that he published a treatise on private
hygiene, and as Secretary-General of the Société de Mèdicine
pratique, he wrote a memoir on the law of the practice of medi-
cine (1827). In 1830 he entered very warmly into many of
the questions of social and economic reform which then agitated
France, and became distinguished as an orator. In 1833 Léon
Simon made the acquaintance of Dr. Curie. Freed from the
illusions of ancient medicine, the success which he saw obtained
by Dr. Curie from Homoeopathy charmed the unoccupied orator;
he soon became a convert to the new doctrine. His time being
his own he employed it profitably in the study of Hahnemann's
doctrine, and it was not long before he became an intelligent
and fully convinced apostle.
At the end of 1833 he founded with Curie the first journal
of Homœopathy under the title of Journal de la Médicine Homœo-
pathique. This bi-monthly periodical lived but one year.
In 1834 he was a contributor to the Archives de la Médicine
Homoxpathique, of which he became the director in 1838 with
Dr. Libert.
In 1842 he published the Annales de la Médicine Homœo-
pathique, in conjunction with MM. Jahr and Croserio.
In 1845 he founded the Société Hahnemanniene, and the
Journal de la Médicine Homeopathique, edited by the members of
the Société Hahnemanniene; afterwards he published some
articles in the Journal de la Société Gallicane, and in that of the
Société Homœopathique de France.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
607
His talents as a writer and as an orator often called him to
bear the office of Secretary-General or President of the Société
Hahnemanniene, of the Société Gallicane de Médicine Homeo-
pathique, and of the Société Médicale Homœopathique de France.
He took part in all the Homoeopathic Congresses since that
of 1835, presided over by Hahnemann, until the last of all, that
of Bordeaux, of which he was the brilliant President.
These different labors, added to the practice of his profession,
were not sufficient to satisfy his ardor for the propagation of the
doctrine to which he had devoted the rest of his life He bore
in mind his success as an orator and determined to use it for the
advancement of the cause which he embraced.
From 1835 to 1848 he continued every winter to give a course
of lectures on Homœopathy. The events of 1848 and the new
laws on public instruction prevented him from giving these
lectures from 1848 until the year 1865.
We ought to revert to the year 1835, the commencement of
his professoriate at the hall in the Rue Saint-Guillaume. All
those who attended his lectures will remember, and can bear me
out in the remembrance, of the brilliant contest he there main-
tained; for he did not content himself with an exposition of the
doctrine, but very readily accepted controversy after his lec-
tures.
I still remember many occasions when he had to sustain very
lively and sometimes passionate attacks; never in his replies did
he abandon perfect propriety, moderation and logic. I still
seem to see him, in one of these conferences, disputing with an
adversary worthy of him, a disputant whose name is a sufficient
warranty for his scientific position, for his talent and his ardor
in discussion, the late Dr. Requin. It was a delight to his
numerous audience to see with what calmness, with what spirit,
with what justice and vigor his reply in defence of the new
doctrine was couched.
I venture to affirm that in the numerous attacks which he
brought upon himself by his attestation to the truth of the new
system of medicine, during the earlier days of his lectureship,
no single adversary had cause to complain of any want of
courtesy on his part.
Dr. Léon Simon had great command of language, even with-
out previous preparation; often he became very eloquent. Sober
608
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
in his manner, methodical in his expositions, it was easy to re-
member that which he said. These qualities made him as dis-
tinguished as an orator as he was remarkable as a physician.
Admirably endowed as a speaker, he had above all the art of
giving conviction. Thus Homeopathy owes to him a certain
number of its practitioners.
Among his lesser writings was a letter to the Minister of
Public Instruction (1835), concerning the summary condemna-
tion which the Academy of Medicine had pronounced against
Homœopathy; and a letter to the members of the Faculty of
Medicine of Paris (1847).
A notice of the life and works of Hahnemann, prefacing the
4th edition of the Organon (1856).
The memoir in answer to the note of MM. Gallard and Reibe-
lot, who had attacked Homœopathy in a manner showing their
own ignorance of its principles.
Instructions on the cholera published by the Hahnemannian
Society (1849.)
A memoir on scrofulous diseases (1857).
But his principal works are, in my opinion, his Cours de Médi-
cine Homœopathique (1836); his Commentaires sur l'Organon (last
edition, 1856).
It is here that we are able to perceive him to be the philosopher,
the physician, the thinker, and the writer. It is here that we
can appreciate the constancy and firmness of his medical convic-
tions which he never changed.
Here we find the practitioner, the professor, the writer every-
where courageously defending the principles and the doctrine of
Homœopathy, not as a slave to its letter, but as a faithful disci-
ple who had seized the spirit and the true character and teach-
ings of the "Organon."
One single quotation will prove my point.
As I have said in the commencement of this notice, in 1833
the Journal de la Médicine Homeopathique appeared, and we read
in the introduction this phrase of M. Léon Simon: "If we have
received Hahnemann's idea as a thing of value, it is under the
condition of attempting to aid in all the developments that it
admits of."
This rule stated publicly in the early days of his appearing as
a disciple of the doctrine of Hahnemann, was that which he con-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
609
stantly followed; this rule he proposed to follow also in the new
periodical which he was about to produce this year, in co-
editorship with his son.
I have hitherto said nothing of the titles of M. Léon Simon,
because titles do not make the man; they do not even always do
him honor unless he holds them honor.
M. Léon Simon gave honor to the following titles:-he was
Doctor of Medicine of the Faculty of Paris and of the University
of Cleveland (Ohio); formerly President and Secretary-General
of the Society of Homœopathic Medicine of Paris, and of the
Hahnemannian Society; formerly President of the Homoeopathic
Medical Society of France; Corresponding Member of the Society
of Science and Belles-Lettres of Blois; of the British Homœo-
pathic Society of London; of the Hahnemannian Society of
Madrid; of the Homœopathic Society of Palermo, and of that of
Brazil; of the Netherland Society of Homoeopathic Medicine, and
of the Pharmacodynamic Society of Brussels.
This short notice reveals to us a man whose loss the homoeo-
pathic school has to deplore. It permits us to show the amount
of work which this physician had to pass through at the same
time he was engaged in the duties of a very large practice, in
those of lectureship, those of learned societies, of the publication
of his works, and of his contributions to different periodical pub-
lications.
And this was not even all, for in addition to the theoretical
demonstrations of his course he added during many years prac-
tical demonstrations in the public dispensaries. Meanwhile he
also found time to fulfil every family duty.
He was certainly one of the most fully occupied practitioners
of the capital; and in the application of the doctrines which he
taught so well, his success was equal to his promise. Familiar
with the difficulties of diagnosis, he knew, after the example of
all great practitioners, how to draw from each form of disease
such indications as it could furnish, just as a logician draws de-
ductions from principles. But this was not making common
cause with the school of the past in its application of routine
treatment
Homœopathic therapeutics has less grand words than its
rival. We know that there are alteratives, anti-spasmodics,
neuro tonics, counter-stimulants. We know that it has all been
610
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
too often repeated. But we know better still that all that
classification is hypothetical, that it proceeds from great general-
izations; that the indications of the old school are not precise;
that they proceed from a vague synthesis to make them
correspond to deductions more vague still with grand words,
which give us no real knowledge of the value of the medicines.
Our regretted colleague taught and practiced another method;
he knew that the indications ought to be individualized to en-
able us to choose the medicine. He knew that in place of anti-
phlogistics, anti periodics, anti-all-the-fantasies of an imagina-
tion excessively hyperbolical, medicines well studied are neither.
more nor less than real pictures of extremely varied morbid
states, corresponding symptom for symptom to all the varieties
that disease can assume in each individual.
M. Léon Simon was a successful physician, and enjoyed a very
great reputation among his colleagues, especially among those
elder homoeopaths, the honor of the younger school, who were
the direct pupils of Hahnemann.
The high consideration of those men is truly a title of honor
and a great recompense. M. Léon Simon had the honor of mer-
iting and of obtaining these advantages. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
74, p 152. Mo. Hom. Rev., vol. 11, pp. 383, 761. Kleinert,
299. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 69.
SIMPSON, STEPHEN. Dr. Simpson was one of the early
London homoeopathic practitioners. In 1836 he wrote a book
on "The Practical Advantages of Homoeopathy." A writer in
the British Journal for April, 1856, says: Dr. Simpson's was a
timely work. The writer should have remained at his post; but
he was discouraged, and took to a sheep run in Australia.
Whether he is yet alive or dead this deponent knoweth not.
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 194.)
SODERBERG. The name of Soderberg appears in the
Zeitung list of 1832 and in Quin's list of 1834. He was then
living in Sixtuna, Sweden. Leidbeck writes: We soon made a
convert of Dr. Soderberg, an eminent botanist and ornithologist.
who had settled in the ancient little town of Sixtuna. Unfortu-
nately, his useful and promising career was cut short in 1835 by
typhus fever. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 342.)
OF HOMEOPATHY.
611
SOLLIER. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy at
Marseilles. He was there in 1842, as Rapou regrets that he had
no time to call on him.
SONNENBERG, VON. Was a contributor to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was assistant district
physician in Brood, Slavonia. His name appears on the Zeitung
and Quin lists.
SOUDEN. Was an early practitioner of Homœopathy in
Sweden. Leidbeck writes: My friend and fellow student, Dr.
Souden, having come to the same resolution, we were the first
Swedish physicians who practically embraced Honœopathy.
Dr. Souden gave up the practice of Homœopathy almost simul-
taneously with that of all practice of medicine, except that of
psychiatry. He was about the same time appointed councilor
of medicine, from which dignity he has lately retired with a
pension. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 342.)
SPOHR. His name appears in the Zeitung list of
practicing Homœopathy in Gandersheim in Brunswick.
also a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829.
1832 as
He was
STEARNS, DANIEL EDWARD. Was born in Hines-
burgh, Vt., in 1801. His father was born in Massachusetts; his
mother in Connecticut. He received his early education in his
native town. His medical studies were commenced with Dr.
David Deming, and he attended the University of Vermont at
Burlington, where he graduated in September, 1828. The prepa-
ration for his profession was attended with many embarrassments
and with many illustrations of a kindly Providence. Without
pecuniary resources and poorly clad, he earned by teaching in
the winter, and by working in the summer, the means to enable
him to attend two full courses of lectures. In the fall of 1826,
while attending his first course of lectures in Burlington, be was
invited to enter a drug store in New York city. This he was
obliged to decline, but in the fall of 1827 the request was re-
peated from the same store, and as he had completed his full
course of lectures he accepted and removed to New York.
Though poorly clad, yet with good health and an honest heart,
and possessing a knowledge of the Materia Medica, he entered
upon his business, continuing until the next autumn. Retiring
-
612
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
to receive his diploma and undecided what his next step should
be, he received from New York a letter advising him not to allow
the want of money to hinder his return to the city. If he should
pay for his diploma, his funds would be exhausted. If he
should go to New York he could not take with him the propable
evidence of his graduation. The means were provided and he
returned to New York. In the following winter he spent his
time in attendance upon the lectures of the College of Physicians
and Surgeons and to the hospital. In the spring of 1828 he was
introduced to Dr. John F. Gray, Gram, and other homoeopathic
physicians, who constituted the body of the school in New York.
He had found in his reading on the theory and practice of medi-
cine but little satisfaction. There was much that was con-
fusing and little that was instructive. As he examined Homo-
opathy he found his views becoming fixed and the basis of his
convictions settled and firm. In the spring of 1829 he com-
menced the practice of Homoeopathy and continued to practice
it in New York until 1852 or 1853, when he removed to Tre-
mont Station, Westchester county, a suburb of New York. For
two years he practiced daily in the city, when the increasing
demands upon his services in Tremont obliged him to give his
whole time to practice in that place. In the spring of 1856 he
fell and dislocated his shoulder, which, being badly reduced,
which, with a severe cough and a hernia, disabled him from
active practice. In 1871 he was still living at Tremont, but was
retired from practice. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 448. Cleave's
Biography. N. E. Med. Gaz., March, 1871.)
STEGEMANN, VON. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann
Jubilee of 1829. His name appears on the Zeitung list of 1832
and Quin's of 1834. He was then practicing in Dorpat The
Hahnemann list places him in Dorpat, but the Quin list and the
Zeitung as Imperial Councilor of St. Petersburg, late of Carls-
ruhe. Bojanus says that from a letter by Dr. Stegemann, dated
February 2, 1825, and published in the Archiv that he was then
practicing Homoeopathy with zeal and success at Dorpat, Livonia.
He seems to have been the pioneer of Homoeopathy in the Baltic
provinces; he was a Prussian, studied under Vogt, Hohn and
Trechart in Jena, was summoned to St. Petersburg to attend.
some Grand Duke, was created State Councilor, married and
◄
OF HOMOEOPATHY
613
settled down at Dorpat, was sent for to Riga in 1823, where he
cured a lady of epilepsy who had been subjected to all kinds of
treatment without effect, whereby he converted her husband,
Mr. C. Kaule, who there and then set himself to study medicine
and became a successful practitioner of Homoeopathy, but was
persecuted by the old school authorities in 1831. Stegemann,
who had left Riga, returned to that town in 1833, then trans-
ferred himself to Dorpat, where he practiced Homoeopathy for
some time. Not long, however, for he died in Switzerland in
1835. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 246. Brit. Jour. Hom,, vol. 38,
p. 305. Bulletin de la Soc. Hom. de France, Aug., 1867.)
STEIGENTISCH.
Huber says that when Fischer went in
1825 to Brum, Moravia, he found two allies, one of whom was
Steigentisch; he had been a merchant, but had gone through a
course of surgery and had done medical service in the German
army.. Having some practical knowledge he gained many ad-
herents to the system among the higher classes of society, treat-
ing mostly chronic cases. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 200.)
STEPHANI. In the Zeitung list of 1832 and the Quin list of
1834, Stephani is located at Rothe in Wurtemburg.
STOEGER, MATHIAS. Rapou says that Stoeger intro-
duced Homœopathy into Gratz in the Steyermark. He left Gratz
about 1842, going to Karlstadt in Croatia. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 213.)
STRATTON, SAMUEL. In 1833 he edited with notes the
first English edition of Hahnemann's "Organon" which was
translated by Mr. Devrient. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, p. 193.)
STUELER. Was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829, at which time he was practicing in Berlin. The name ap-
pears on both the Zeitung and Quin lists. Rapou says that
Stueler located in Berlin in 1827. That he had been a disciple
of Oken, the great naturalist, and followed his ideas that force.
reigned in all things, and his opinions had inclined him toward
Homœopathy. He gained great reputation as an accoucheur,
and abandoned for this work the practice of medicine. He also
received the favor of the Prince of Hohenzollern, to whom he
was attached, and the enjoyment of a fortune obtained at the
hand of a noble relative, to go to Berlin and there introduce
614
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Homœopathy. Alone against the Faculty and physicians, in a
few months by his successes he became one of the best known
physicians. Stueler had from his infancy carried the germs of a
premature death. An elevation of the right side of the throat
announced an aneurism of the heart, whose enormous throbbing
demanded absolute repose. But he did not wish to abandon the
scientific mission with which he was charged. He attended to
the last moments to his immense clientage, and some months
previous to death, during the winter of 1834, he braved the frosts,
he drove about in his sleigh over the great extent of Berlin. He
died soon after.
The Zeitung records:
"}
On the 16th of April (1838) Dr. Stueler, Medical Councilor,
died in Berlin from a severe disease of the chest and of the
abdominal organs, to which finally dropsy of the pericardium
was added. Dr. Melicher, who, together with Dr. Reisig, had
given to the deceased his medical aid, has promised to furnish
this Journal with a necrology. Then it will be seen whether,
as a hasty Berlin correspondent announced in the Leipziger
Zeitung, the deceased at the end turned to a "rational medi-
cine This assertion seems to me a manifest untruth, as shortly
before his decease I had an epistolary consultation with Dr.
Melicher respecting the means for alleviating his sufferings.
The cursory remark of this correspondent, that the recourse to
"rational medicine" had been taken "too late," and the
prophecy proclaimed like a hope that with the deceased also
Homœopathy in Berlin would come to an end, I find extremely
ludicrous. (A. H. Z., vol. 13, p. 192. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 226-
228.)
SUNDEEN. In the Zeitung list of 1832 Dr. Sundeen is
located as in practice at Stockholm, Sweden. Quin also gives
the name two years later.
SWOFF. Swoff was a Russian nobleman who, during the
cholera epidemic of 1831, treated at Saratov 939 cases with a loss.
of only 78. In order that he might have the most undoubted
proofs of the efficacy of his treatment, he caused the Cholera
Committee and the District Physician Wagner, in Saratov, to
certify his cures; and the physician who had received homoeo-
OF HOMEOPATHY.
615
pathic remedies from Swoff for his private use also certified
that he had found them promptly curative in his own practice.
(World's Hom. Conv., vol. 2, pp. 255, 258.)
SZABO, JOHANN VON. The name appears in the list of
contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829; he is, medical
doctor and country oculist, in Hungary. The name appears
both in the Zeitung and Quin lists, but the place of his residence
is nowhere given.
TAGLIANINI, FRANCESCO. Was a pioneer of Homœ-
opathy in Italy. According to Quin he was practicing in Ascoli
in 1834. Rapou says that it was in 1826 that the celebrated
physician Taglianini came to Naples and there observed under
the conduct of Romano the results of homoeopathic treatment;
he left the city filled with admiration for this method that had
so soon showed its superiority over the old procedure.
Dadea says that Taglianini acquired his knowledge of Homo-
opathy from the translations of Romani of the Materia Medica
Pura.
Rapou says that the celebrated physician, Dr. Taglianini, at
the beginning of the year 1826 went to Naples to observe, under
the treatment of Dr. Romani, the results of homoeopathic treat-
ment and left the place filled with admiration at a method so
superior in every way to old medical means.
He was of Ascoli. He went with Romani in the suite of the
Count and Countess of Shrewsbury to England. There is some
doubt as to the date of this visit. It would seem that it was
not as early as 1827, but even as late as the year 1830. (Rapou,
vol. I, p. 134. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 14, þ. 192.
World's
Conv., vol. 2, p. 96.)
TAUBES, JOHANN. In Hirschel's Zeitschrift for February
19, 1879, is the following: Dr. Johann Taubes died in his
75th year at Vienna. (Zeit. fuer Hom. Klinik, vol. 28, p. 23.)
TAUBITZ, JOSEPH. Is given in the Zeitung list of 1832
as practicing Veterinary Homœopathy at Glaubendorf in Aus-
tria. In the list of contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829, Joseph Taubitz is mentioned as a surgeon and obstetri-
cian of Glaubendorf. Rapou says that he took the practice of
Marenzeller when he left Milan in 1841, so that at that time he
must have been located in Milan. (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 197.)
616
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
TESSIER, JEAN PAUL. We copy the following from the
Art Médical: the necrology appeared first in the Temps, being
written by Dr. A. Cretin: Jean Paul Tessier succumbed to
hemoptysis on the 16th of May, 1862, in his 52d year. For
about a year he had been suffering from tuberculosis. In spite
of his increasing weakness he continued visiting his numerous
patients up to the day on which he was seized with the hemor-
rhage. Tessier had distinguished himself even in his youth by
very valuable works. Even lately Prof. Trousseau, in his lectures,
made honorable mention of Tessier's Recherches sur la Diathese
Purulente.” As soon as Tessier had reached the required age, he
was appointed hospital physician after a brilliant competitive
examination, his first position being in the Hôpital St. Marguer-
ite. then at Beaujon, and lastly in the Hôpital des Enfants'
Malades. In the first-named hospital he, in the year 1849, in-
stituted his first experiments with the homoeopathic treatment
in cases of pneumonia and cholera. From this time his convic-
tion in favor of this curative method was immovable. All his
labors, his whole activity, all his exertions in the hospital, as
well as in private practice, only aimed at the victory of his medi-
cal reform. He powerfully contributed to the progress of
Homœopathy through the publication of his "Etudes de Méde-
cine Générale," and by the establishment of the "Art Médical,"
one of the most valuable of medical journals. On the 18th of
May a numerous and select throng paid the last honors to this
eminent and unselfish physician, whose death has left a great
vacuum in science and the greatest grief among his friends. The
Société Médicale Homeopathique de France was represented in
this concourse by its president and almost all its members; but
we were deeply grieved not to see in the great numbers assem-
bled even one hospital physician. Tessier was buried, accord-
ing to his wish, in Nonancourt, where he will lie in the midst
of his own.
The editor of the "Revue du Monde Catholique" published a
necrology forwarded to it, in which it is stated that at the termi-
nation of his earthly career the cross of Commander of the Order
of Saint-Gregoire-le-Grande was given to him, and he concludes.
the necrology by adding the following words: We have nothing
to say about the medical practice of Dr. Tessier. This question
does not belong before our tribunal. We would only desire to
"
OF HOMEOPATHY.
617
His "
His "Etudes de
add, that a system adopted by a man of such grandeur and con-
scientiousness deserves to be proved by all those who earnestly
desire the progress of the science. Nevertheless, even though
we are unwilling to make any decision as to this most important
question, we shall touch at least on another point, just as im-
portant. Materialism reigns in medicine. Though it may be
concealed more or less behind a misty and barbarous phraseology,
it nevertheless reigns and rules in all reality. Tessier energeti-
cally opposed this most destructive doctrine.
Médecine Générale," which, we are sorry to say, he could not
complete, have disclosed the depth of the evil and also the
means for curing it. The first part of this fair work, entitled
"Concerning the Influence of Materialism on the Medical Doc-
trines of the School of Paris," abundantly shows that even the
best of modern physicians actually continue to hold to the ideas of
Cabanis. He does not demonstrate this by empty citations, but
by a penetrating and striking discussion. Did not an oracle of
this Faculty define man as a "mamifère monodelphe binane," in
order that he might deny the unity of the human race and
ascribe all to matter? Has it not been declared, in addition, that
'life is not to be viewed as a principle, but as a result, a prop-
erty, which the body enjoys, without any necessity of assuming
any other agent in the body?" Tessier took notice of these
theories, and has demonstrated their complete untenableness
and unfortunate consequences. Passing from criticism to doctrine,
he undertook to subordinate science to the systems. Every
science must have a basis. Tessier has reminded the learned
world of this elementary and yet unrecognized verity, and has
demonstrated it. He found this basis in the Bible. The question
as to the essence of diseases he declares to be the question of
their origin, and thence the question of the origin of evil. He
started from this point to find the confines of the extensive theory
of his art. To stifle the mighty opposition of this powerful ad-
versary, possessed of such forcible language, conjoined with so
acute a mind, a man of unusual philosophic culture and great
knowledge, penetrated by a mighty thought, his opponents as-
serted that he only spake in the name of Homoeopathy. This
amounted to a change of base and a withdrawal from the combat
through a cowardly flight. The author of the "Études de Méde-
cine" raised the question of materialism and spiritualism, of
618
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
system (theory) and science. As a logician and Christian he
then concluded, that the Christian spirit must dominate the
medical instruction. This in two words is the labor to which
Tessier consecrated his life. He originated a school, which will
continue his work.
The Art Midical contains an elaborate necrology of its great
founder, in which are described faithfully and warmly his life,
his labors and his teaching, as also the persecutions, infestations
and slights which he suffered his life long. We take part in the
sadness expressed in a worthy manner by Alph. Milcent in the
name of the editors. For Homeopathy has thereby received
another wound which will not so soon heal up. The official
recognition of Homœopathy in France expires with the death of
Tessier. The hatred felt by the medical faculty in Paris against
him was so great, that all his clinical assistants were exorcised
and not one of them was received into the Faculty. His enemies
have obtained their desire. They have finally hunted to his
death this energetic character, this lofty spirit, this unselfish
healer. May he in the heavenly mansions obtain that rest which
he could not find on earth. He has faithfully carried on the con-
flict-it was not, we are sorry to say, permitted him to see the
final triumph. (A. H. Z., 64, 176, vol. 65, 23.)
THORER, TIMOTHEUS SAMUEL. The name appears
in the Zeitung list of 1832, at which time he was practicing in
Gorlitz in Prussia. Quin also notices him. In the British
Journal for July, 1847, is the following: Dr. Thorer was born at
Gorlitz on April 25, 1795. He died there June 25, 1846. This
is a name inseparably connected with the advance of Homo-
opathy. The writings of Dr. Thorer are numerous and well-
known to every student of Homoeopathy. His "Practische
Beitrage" rank him among the most zealous and useful of
Hahnemann's followers. He was also a voluminous contributor
to the Archiv.
At the organization of the Silesian Homœopathic Society in
June 13, 1832, Dr. Thorer was elected first president. The
Practical Contributions was really published by this Society.
Thorer denounced the Isopathic craze. He said that the so-
called Isopathic remedies did not cure better, if as well, as the
ordinary homoeopathic ones.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
619
The Zeitung says:
Samuel Timotheus Thorer was born in Gorlitz, April 25th,
1795. His father, Carl Heinrich, was married to Sophie
Eleonore, nee Schuessler, and was a respected citizen and
furrier; it was his particular care to give his son, who at an
early day showed a rich measure of mental powers, a good
education. He, therefore, at an early age sent him to the Gym-
nasium (High School). After the boy, in his eager desire for
knowledge, had passed through all the classes, and had grown
to be a sturdy youth, he entered, in the year 1815, the Uni-
versity of Leipzig and zealously and assiduously prosecuted the
study of medicine. But he was not satisfied with the merely
practical or utilitarian part of science. His inclination, as well
as the excellent classical preparation he had received in his
native city, introduced him into the inner circle of a general
scientific culture. Platner, Heinroth and Wendt were his
teachers in philosophy, Rosenmueller and Bock in anatomy,
Schwægrichen in botany, zoology and mineralogy. By Eschen-
bach he was taught chemistry; by Gilbert, physics; by Platner,
physiology; by Puchelt, pathology; by Eschenbach, pharmaceu-
tics; by Ludwig, pharmacology; by Haase, therapeutics; by
Kuhl, surgery, and by Joerg, obstetrics. Nor did he fail to at-
tend the interesting and genial lectures of Heinroth concerning
physical dissases, or the elegant lectures of Platner, in which
the principles and laws of medicina forensis were set forth. Par-
ticipation in a disputation presided over by Puchelt completed
the cycle of his scientific exercises to which he devoted himself
with all zeal, keeping outside of those unions, which, although
closely allied with the student's life, nevertheless in the form
which prevailed then and which rules even now, are only too
apt to lead the mind of youths astray and to deprive the pursuit
of science of precious and irretrievable time.
After Thorer had in this manner gained a thorough knowl-
edge of the healing art, according to the allopathic system,
without giving much attention or study to the homoeopathic
theory which was just then arising and developing in Leipzig,
to complete his practical education he went at the end of the
year 1817 to Berlin. There he visited for this purpose, under
the direction of Hufeland, Horn and Siebold, the excellent in-
stitutions there for one year, passed his medico chirurgic ex-
620
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
amination with distinguished honors on the 12th of May, 1818,
and received his doctor's diploma on the 18th of December of
the same year by defending his dissertation De Abortu.
the summer of 1819 he then passed the state examination.
In
Having returned to his native city, Dr. Thorer settled down
as practicing physician, surgeon and obstetrician, and soon
acquired a considerable practice both in the city and in the sur-
rounding country. He first only used the customary allopathic
method. But his attention was soon called to the successful
cures undeniably effected by the esteemed and much sought for
Surgeon Schulze, in Gruna, by the homoeopathic method. In
consequence he studied the writings of Hahnemann and his fol-
lowers with his peculiar perseverance; he made friends with the
afore-mentioned practitioner, and gave himself up entirely to
the homoeopathic method, which he practiced in his extended
sphere of operation with fidelity to his convictions and with.
consistency. But with the patients of the penitentiary in
Liegnitz, whose physician he had been by royal appointment
ever since the establishment of the prison, he used the allopathic
method.
In his extensive practice Thorer was careful, conscientious,
indefatigable and extremely sympathetic. He was frequently
seen deeply moved and sad for days when he had not succeeded
in saving a patient from death. At every such occasion he
manifested to the family, whose physician and friend he was,
his heartfelt sympathy. He himself enjoyed a happy family
life through his marriage with Anna Caroline, née Eichholz,
who presented him with two daughters, who are still living.
Thorer was a faithful, loving and careful husband and father to
his loved ones, and his time was divided between his intercourse
with them and with a few friends, and his practice of his art
and his occupation with science.
In the year 1832 he, with several other homoeopathic physi-
cians of Upper Lusatia and of Silesia, who had practically
proved this curative method and become convinced of its cor-
rectness and agreement with nature, formed themselves into a
society. This was formed of the Doctors Mueller, in Liegnitz;
Schindler, in Greiffenberg; Engelhardt, in Loeban; Fielitz, in
Lauban, later in Langensalza, now in Brunswick; Neumann, in
Glogan; Schubert, in Hirschberg; Gerner, in Ebersbach, near
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
621
Loebau; Weigel, in Schmiedeberg; the medical practitioner,
Rueckert, in Herrnhut; Surgeon and Obstetrician Tietze, in
Ebersbach, near Loebau; and Surgeon Schulze, in Gruna.
Later on Dr. Schmieder, in Liegnitz, also joined the society.
The society had as its openly professed end: To gather and
communicate their experiences in an earnest and scientific
manner, to advance and confirm the nascent art with all their
strength and to perfect for suffering humanity a natural, safe
and mild mode of treating diseases. Thorer was the president,
the center and soul of the society and published a very meri-
torious work, entitled "Practical Contributions in the Domain
of Homœopathy;" this work communicated the experience and
the views of the members of the society. The first volume ap-
peared in the year 1834, published in octavo by Schumann, in
Leipzig, and contains two original essays of the editor, the one
concerning intermittent fever, the other concerning the scientific
development of the Materia Medica. In the 2d volume (1835,
by Schumann) he gave a critical review of the so-called
isopathic system, and a continuation on intermittent fever. The
3d volume, published by Koehler, in Gortitz, in 1836, brought
Ophthalmic communications by him, an article on the latent state
of diseases, and homoeopathic cures in two numbers. The fourth
volume was published in 1839 (again by Schumann in Leipzig)
and contains in the title the addition "or of specific therapy,"
and was also arranged differently, was richly furnished with in-
teresting contributions from Thorer's hand. It contains, besides
the chief articles, "The Localities of Diseases," according to
Dr. Kretzschmar's ideas in his disputed questions in Homo-
opathy, the mouth and hoof disease in the year 1838, the roving
erysipelas in children; there are found in it also a number of
genial communications from his experience and from his read-
ing
While Thorer was thus practically and scientifically inde-
fatigably active in the field of his life's vocation, he also kept in
view the other domains of science, as is natural for a man of true
culture. Soon after his return to his native city (Sept. 20, 1820,)
he had joined a society of men, called the Scientific Society of
Upper Lusatia, and which forms the center of the scientific life
in this small province. As a living member of this society, he
also devoted to it of his activity, enriched its archives and col-
622
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
lections with several valuable, chiefly antiquarian contributions,
and was elected soon after his joining the society as a member of
the committee directing its affairs. When in the year 1833 Von
Oertzen, the governing elder of the Markgraviate of Upper
Lusatia, who had been director of this committee, was appointed
president, Thorer took his place as director and retained it
through annual re election till the year 1841.
In July of this year Thorer, though extremely vigorous of
body, was overtaken by a dangerous disease, owing to too un-
sparing exposure and exertion in the exercise of his profession.
An inflammation of the lungs, too little regarded at first brought
him to the brink of the grave and broke his strong vital force.
Under these circumstances it was natural that the choice of a
director for the committee was deflected from him. and that
Baron von Stillfried, now the Royal Vice-Chiefmaster of Cere-
monies, occupied his place for a year. But when a visit to Salz-
bruun had somewhat restored the sunken vital force of Thorer,
he was recalled in the year 1842 by the confidence of the society
to the position of director, which he only relinquished of his
own accord on the 27th of December, 1842. His activity during
this lengthy period was most gratifying and successful for the
Society of Sciences. In friendly agreement with the president
and the secretary of the society, he was always ready to advance
the ends of the society; to carry out the plans submitted to him,
and in general to lend a hand in everything calculated to quicken
the activity of the society, to enlarge its connections and to guard
its honor. Free from scientific one sidedness and narrow-minded-
ness, he directed the business of the society with impartiality,
kindliness and with a tranquil, far-seeing comprehension of the
subjects before him. So it naturally came to pass, that during
the period in which he presided at most of the meetings of the
Executive Committee the Scientific Society continually in-
creased and showed a more lively activity. The fruits of this
activity appeared in numerous, valuable prize essays and other
essays, which in part were communicated to the learned world in
the Neider-Lausitzer Magazin, in a greater enrichment of the
library, of the collections of documents and of other valuable
material, in the publication of a new series of the "Scriptores
Rerum Susaticum," the resumption of the topographic work, and
manifold encouragement given and beginnings made of the
history and geography of this province.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
623
The deep mortifications experienced by Thorer at this period
could not but act injuriously on his suffering body. Neverthe-
less he kept on as long as he could, i. e., as long as he could
work with his diminished vital forces. But soon his earthly
activity should come to a full termination, and the end of his
earthly career approached nearer and nearer. He himself was
conscious of it and spoke of it with resignation and tranquillity.
His whole being turned toward the goal to which he was tend-
ing; by assiduously occupying himself with religious and theo-
logical writings he sought to make himself familiar with the
future sphere of our existence, and he actually became so familiar
with it that he, during the last time of his life, spoke of his death
with a joyous elevation of thought. His death ensued at 6
o'clock in the evening of the 25th of June, 1846, and when his
lifeless remains were interred in the Nikolai cemetery in the
morning of June 28th a numerous and deeply moved funeral
cortege was in attendance.
And in Stapf's Archiv. is the following: With deep sadness
we ascribe also this name in the Memorial Book devoted to the
remembrance of dear departed ones, the leaves of which are
filled with the names of so many men who have been too soon
torn away from their art and from humanity. One of the most
excellent of these men, without doubt, was our Thorer. As a
man he was most distinguished by true, many sided cultivation
of mind and heart; as a physician-and especially as a homœo-
path he was distinguished by his thorough eruditlon, quiet
investigation, loyalty to truth, and active zeal. This is amply
testified by his practice of his art, and his defense of it by word
and writing. A thoroughly noble and pure nature, he stood
far above the common practical and literary modes practiced
only too frequently in a most lamentable manner, especially in
Homœopathy; he kept himself on the pure height of his spirit-
ual and affectional individuality-a phenomenon as refreshing
as it is rare in our times, which are so sadly troubled with
passions of all kinds.
J
After having received a careful classical education in the Gym-
nasium (High School) of his native city, he, in 1815, went to
Leipzig. He devoted himself with great zeal to the study of
medicine, which he faithfully endeavored thoroughly to fathom
in all directions. Beside the studies properly medical, he also
624
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
studied with especial fondness philosophy and the humanities,
and in the select circle of homogeneous spirits he enjoyed happy
days. In the year 1817 he left Leipzig for Berlin, where he,
after a diligent use of the clinical institutions there, received
his diploma as doctor after defending his dissertation, "De
Abortu," and in the year 1819, after a successful official exami-
nation by the State authorities, he received the licentia practi-
candi.
As a thorough-going allopath, he now moved to Goerlitz, and
soon established an extensive practice. But the hour soon ap-
proached in which also he should see the light of the true heal-
ing art, and it was fortunate for him that he did not close his
eyes to it. Having witnessed many successful cures effected
through Homoeopathy by Surgeon Schulze of Gruna, his atten-
tion was called to this method, hitherto unknown to him, and he
considered it his duty to make himself acquainted therewith
through a zealous and unprejudiced study of the chief homoeo-
pathic writings. The result could not fail to be that this honest
friend of truth soon became acquainted with and devoted to the
new therapy, and practiced it with great success in his private
practice. Around him there was soon formed a circle of homœo-
pathic physicians from Lusatia and the neighboring Silesia* and
in the year 1832 he instituted the Lusatian Silesian Society of
Homœopathic Physicians, whose president he was himself.
The activity shown by this society, and especially by Thorer
himself, is amply shown by the "Practische Beitraege in Gebiete der
Homœopathie" ("Practical Contributions in the Domain of
Homœopathy"), 1834-1839, four volumes. Besides the many
excellent contributions from other parties. they contain many
excellent articles from Thorer, which plainly show him forth as
the faithful observer and the clear, impartial thinker. No less
valuable articles from his pen are found in our Archiv.; these in
part appeared under his own name, and partly under the name
""
Portalius.'
((
Besides his practical work and his medico-literary activity our
departed friend also devoted a part of his time and vigor to the
*The Doctors Engelhardt, in Lobau; Schindler, in Griefenberg; Mueller
and Schmieder, in Liegnitz; Weigel, in Schmiedeberg; Schubert, in Hirsch-
berg; Naumann, in Glogau; Fielitz, in Laubau (now in Brunswick);
Schulze, in Gruna; Rueckert, in Herrnhuth; Tietze, in Ebersbach.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
625
interests of the society for the furtherance of science in Upper
Lusatia, in Goerlitz, which society is favorably known for its
merits with respect to the culture and history of that region. He
was an active member of this Society, and from 1833 to 1841 its
president, and was re-elected in 1842-3, when he resigned, owing
to declining health. The publications of this society contain
many very valuable contributions by our friend Thorer, which
manifestly show the many-sidedness and thoroughness of his
culture.
Though strong and robust by nature, his health was deeply
undermined by a disease of the lungs, caused, in 1841, by the
arduous work of his vocation. Hardly had he recovered some-
what, when his deep and tender feelings were exposed to manifold
undeserved mortifications, which continually aggravated in him
the germ of sickness and death, until, after a long illness, a
painless death, which he saw approaching with a tranquillity of
a wise and good man, ended his earthly career in the evening
hours of June 25th, 1846 —Stapf. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 5, p.
399. Archiv. hom. Heilk., vol. 23. pt. 2, p. 169 Allg. hom.
Zeit., vol. 32, p. 145. Rapou, vol. 1, p. 347; vol. 2, pp. 471, 524,
637. Dudgeon's Lectures.)
TIETZE, C. D. In the list of contributors to the Hahnemann
celebration of 1829 appears the name: Tietze, Wundarzt und
Geburtshelfer zu Ebersbach im Konigr., Sachsen.
Dr. Rueckert published the following memoir in the Neue
Archiv., vol. 3 (vol. 23, pt. 3 in continuous numbering): The
subject of the memoir was born at Celsa, near Lobau, where his
father was a schoolmaster, July 29, 1799. In the year 1812 he
went to the gymnasium at Bauzen, where he underwent the nec-
essary preliminary studies for his subsequent medical education.
In the year 1817 he went to the medico-chirurgical academy of
Dresden, distinguished himself above his compeers for diligence
and desire of acquiring knowledge, and after undergoing his ex-
amination for surgeon and accoucheur in 1820 he the same year
entered upon his practical career. Never resting activity and
devotion soon procured him a considerable practice, especially
as an accoucheur.
Soon after him I commenced my practical career as a homœo-
pathic physician in his neighborhood, where I not unfrequently
626
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
met with him. Although intimate friends in our youth, we now
stood in scientific respects diametrically opposed, as he, still
unacquainted with the nature of Homœopathy, and brimful of
the wisdom of the old school, whose animosity towards the new
doctrine he had imbibed, viewed me as an opponent in my capac-
ity as physician, though his honest and upright character in-
duced him to esteem me still as an old friend. It was not till
the year 1828 that he ventured to make himself acquainted with
homoeopathic writings, and he began to make cautious experi-
ments, which succeeded in spite of his unbelief. Once convinced
of the truth of the homoeopathic law of cure, he followed it out
with untiring ardor; he hesitated not a moment to appear before
the public as a converted Saul, patiently enduring the harassing
persecutions of his colleagues, and submissively bore what must
have been to him as a fortuneless father of a family, a hard lot,
that of seeing himself suddenly descend from a widespread prac-
tice to a small number of patients; but so much the more dili-
gently did he study homoeopathic works, convinced that after
he had passed this crisis a happier future lay before him.
And he was not deceived. With his practical skill he soon
succeeded, by means of ever-increasing cures, in forming a fine
line of practice. He would now, however, not submit to be de-
spoiled by means of his hard won conviction and experience; and,
as was consistent with his straightforward character, he boldly
confuted by word of mouth, and by writing, all the calumnies of
the enemies and the self-styled friends of Homoeopathy when they
at all infringed on the truth, although some men of the opposite
party in exalted positions occasionally made him feel, in no very
agreeable manner, that he was not possessed of the doctor's
degree.
He belonged to the small section of medical men who on the
13th of June, 1832, founded our Lusatian Society; he was one of
our most active members, was beloved by all on account of his
candor, was honored as a zealous partisan of the new school,
esteemed as a practitioner devoted to his patients, and he filled
with great fidelity to the end of his life the post of treasurer to
the society.
Of late years he took great interest in the high potencies,
which he employed with much success. He made himself useful
to Homœopathy by many valuable articles in the Archiv, and in
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
627
the practical communications of the Lusatian Silesian Society.
In the spring of 1847 a typhus abdominalis that had been
spreading slowly in our neighborhood for several years ap-
proached bis sphere of operations, and as soon as he discovered
that Belladonna and Arsenic in high potencies were the chief
remedies for it he boldly encountered it, cured an immense
number of those affected by it (in one family seven persons),
little thinking that he was to fall a sacrifice to his own useful-
ness.
C
Several circumstances, especially a cough that gave his robust
frame a severe shock, some depressing mental emotions, and ex-
posure to cold, after being engaged in protracted labors at a dis-
tance from home, acted injuriously on his health, so that the
contagion found in him a fruitful soil in which to take root.
After several days of slight indisposition, he took seriously
ill on June 11th, 1847, and suspected that he was about to be
afflicted with typhus; he saw and prescribed for his numerous
patients until the 13th, although excessively weak in body, but
at last, on the 14th, he was forced to take to his bed. Hitherto
he had treated himself. He now sought my aid with the utmost
confidence. But more vexations awaited him. I only returned
from a distant journey on the 18th and found my patient in a
despairing condition of mind, that I, although I could not avoid
it, had left him so long in his extremity. All the remedies ex-
hibited remained without effect; the disease increasing day by
day indicated the approach of death, which occurred, after
several days of delirium, on the evening of the 23d of June.
The following is from the Zeitung :
A distinguished physician and obstetrician, Dr. C. D. Tietze,
in Ebersbach, died June 23d (1847), deeply lamented, not only
by his sadly afflicted family, but also by his numerous adherents,
friends and admirers. Typhoid fever, from the attacks of which
he had previously saved several patients, put an end to his active
life. Before he could assist his daughter, the disease seized on
himself. On the 27th of June his body was laid to rest, in the
48th year of his life. He was the pioneer of Homoeopathy in
this district, and for twenty years he has assisted with indefati-
gable faithfulness a great number of patients, acting at the same
time as a skillful and experienced obstetrician. His unselfish-
ness and faithfulness, his modesty and kindliness obtained for
628
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
him the affection of all. Not only his skillful cures, but also
his excellent literary works, mostly printed in the homeopathic
Archiv., so much distinguished him that on account of his
abounding knowledges and his penetrating acumen in the choice
of remedies he was valued and recommended by the most promi-
nent homoeopathic physicians of our time.
A thorough homeopath would find many friends of this cura-
tive method in this densely populated region, for although
Altgersdorf, Duerrhennersdorf, Ebersbach, Friedersdorf, Kott-
marsdorf, Neugersdorf, Neusalza, Spremberg, Spreedorf, Schoen-
bach, etc., have experienced allopaths living in them or near
them; they have no homoeopath. We hope that the loss through
the decease of Tietze will at least, in this respect, be alleviated
soon by a competent successor in his work. By his family and
friends the prematurely departed will be ever remembered, and
to them his loss is irretrievable. (Neue Archiv. f. d. hom. Heil:,
vol. 3, pt. 3, p. 128. Kirby's Am. Jour. Hom., vol. 3, p. 93.
Allg. hom. Zeitung, vol. 33, p. 95. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 416, 481,
542. Atkin's Hom. Direct., 1855, p. 212.)
TIMBART. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in France. (See
World's Hom. Conv., 1876, vol. 1, p. 152.)
TITTMANN, C. A. Was a lawyer in Leipsic who defended
the right of homeopathic physicians to dispense their own
medicines, and in 1829 published a book entitled, "Homœop-
athy in Relation to the Police Laws of the State." He was one
of the contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which
time he lived in Dresden. (Rapou, vol. 2, p. 452. World's
Conv., vol. 2, p. 20.)
TONAILLON. About 1830 introduced Homoeopathy into
Schwarzach. (It was a small town on the Mayn, in the district of
Dettelbach in Würzburg. There was a fine Benedictine Abbey
there with a fine library. This town was ten miles distant from
Würzburg)
TOURNIER. In 1834, according to Quin's list, Dr. Tournier
was practising Homoeopathy in Lyons, France.
TRAJANELLI. Was a pioneer of Homoeopathy in Italy.
Quin gives him as a practitioner of Homoeopathy at Venafro in
1834.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
629
TRINIUS, C. BERNHARD. Trinius was born in 1778
at Eisleben. He was the son of the clergyman Ant. Bernhard
Trinius and his wife Charlotte, sister of Hahnemann. His father
died early and the mother married Dr. Müller, of Eisleben. The
son took his degree in 1802; from 1804 he practiced medicine in
Courland. In 1808 he was appointed physician to the Duchess
Antoinette, of Wurtemberg; he traveled with her through Ger-
many and Russia, and was equally distinguished as a botanist,
physician, and poet.
After the death of the Duchess he was appointed physician to
the emperor (he had acted since 1823 as a teacher of botany at
Petersburg), and in 1829 tutor to the crown prince; in 1836 he
visited, at the request of the Imperial Academy, the chief botani-
cal collections of foreign countries, and after repeated attacks of
apoplexy in Munich and Dresden, in 1837 and 1838, he died of
general dropsy, in 1844, in Petersburg. in the bosom of his
family. In 1830 he retired from medical practice, devoted him-
self to the study of Homœopathy in his study as he previously
had done at the sick bed. He corresponded also with his uncle,
Hahnemann. He published several books. (Brit. Jour. Hom.,
vol. 23, p. 151.)
TROMBETTI. According to the list of Quin he was prac-
ticing Homœopathy at Naples in 1834.
TSCHERWINZKY. Was an early Russian homoeopath.
Bojanus says that in 1832 the Medical Council had also before
them a communication from the military governor of Podolia and
Wolkynia, inclosing a petition of Dr. Tscherwinzky, with attests
from the military hospital at Schitzmir, setting forth that Dr.
Tscherwinzky has in twenty-two days treated homoeopathically
122 patients with various diseases, of whom 55 are cured, I died,
and 66 continue under his care. The Council profess to see
nothing extraordinary in a return which leaves "this method
far behind the expectant treatment as tested at St. Petersburg,'
and that the advantages claimed for it, in contrast with the reg-
ular method, of more limited periods of sickness and economy of
expenditures, are "in direct contradiction to the nature of things
and to sound reason." Besides, "as homoeopathists refuse to
treat external ailments, as well as mutilations and grave diseases
""
630
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
which soldiers contract in service," the half of all hospital
patients would in such hands be left helpless
In order to deal justly by this decision of the Council, it must
be admitted that the condition of Homœopathy at the time, the
rigid observance of the dogmas of Hahnemann, the exlusive use
of high attenuations at long intervals, the vexatious meddling
with external conditions supposed to counteract the effect of the
minute doses, the aggressive attitude of the new school, and
lastly the inexperience of Herrmann in the machinations of Rus-
sian officials, all contributed to strengthen the prejudices of the
opponents of Homœopathy.
The above-mentioned Dr. Tscherwinzky writes to the Russian
Journal of the Homœopathic Healing Art, vol. ii, p. 23, to the
effect that during the cholera epidemic in Schitzmir, in 1831, he
had two quarters of the city under his care; that a highly favor-
able report of homoeopathic treatment of that disease to the Min-
ister of the Interior (Nowossiltzof) caused an order to be sent to
the medical authority of Wolkynia to use that method in future
epidemics, in consequence of which Tscherwinzky, in 1837,
treated there in six weeks 400 patients, of whom twelve died.
(World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 251. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38, p. 309.)
UWINS, DAVID. Practiced Homœopathy in London about
the year 1835-40. In 1837 he published a pamphlet entitled:
"Homœopathy and Allopathy, or Large, Small, or Atomic
>>
Doses.'
Dr. M. B. Sampson, in "Truths and Their Relation to Homœ-
opathy" (p. 51), says: Among the earliest persons who con-
tended in England for a fair hearing of the doctrine were Dr.
Uwins and Mr. Kingdon, both practitioners of high repute. Dr.
Uwins publicly urged before the London Medical Society that
Hahnemann was worthy of the thanks of the profession for his
unwearied industry in ascertaining the properties of medicines,
and he also averred that, from cases which had come under his
own observation, the system was one that was not to be put
down with derision, and that it would eventually overcome all
opposition. For this Dr. Uwins was assailed as a madman, and
there is every reason to believe that, being of a sensitive and re-
fined nature, his death which took place shortly afterwards was
accelerated by this conduct of his colleagues.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
631
VANDERBURGH, FEDERAL. The following sketch is
from the American Hom. Observer:
Federal Vanderburgh, M. D., died January 23d, 1868, at
'Linwood Hills," in the Town of Rhinebeck, Dutchess Co., N.
Y., aged 79 years, 8 months, and 22 days.
Federal Vanderburgh, the seventeenth of a family of nine-
teen children (his father having been married twice), was born
in the Town of Beekman, County of Dutchess, and State of New
York, on the 11th day of May, 1788. As the orthography of
the name would imply, he came of Low Dutch stock, by people
of which nationality, indeed, a large portion of this county was
originally settled. His early education was received in the
common schools of that day, in which were taught only the
simplest elementary branches. By dint of self tuition, aided by
strict application, he acquired a sufficient knowledge of the
Latin language to enable him in after years to prosecute his
medical studies with facility. At the age of 17 he entered him-
self as a student of medicine with Dr. Wright, a celebrated phy-
sician of New Milford, Connecticut. Having remained here for
a short time, he removed to the City of New York, the better to
enjoy the advantages afforded by hospitals, the lectures of pro-
fessors in medical colleges, etc. In the city he entered the office
of the late Stephen (?) Smith, M. D., a leading physician of
that day. Going through the usual cnrriculum of studies he
graduated before he was 21. His manly appearance, (his height
over six feet, with the fact that he was well proportioned,) never
suggested a doubt to the professors as to his age. During his
pupilage he was subject to attacks of pulmonary hæmorrhage
that threatened his life. They were believed to be dependent
upon cardiac obstruction by some, and by others to be purely of
a tubercular origin. Be the case as it might, he never suffered
it to cast down his spirits for a single moment. That indomit-
able will which characterized the man buoyed him up. Marrying
an estimable lady, Miss Hester Orinda Boardman, of New Mil-
ford, Ct., he soon removed to Geneva, in this State, then consti-
tuting a part of the "Great West."
Great West." This was in 1812 or 1813.
The climate of that place was believed to be conducive to health
in those having a proclivity to pulmonary disease-much as we
now send patients to Minnesota and the Lake Superior regions,
for their recovery. Whatever the influences that operated, the
(C
632
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
doctor became robust, and until he was 72 or 75 was a model of
muscular and osseous development, maintaining an upright pos-
ture that struck all as "" remarkable for one of his age." Hav-
ing remained there for a period of something like twenty years,
he returned to New York City about the year 1830. Here and
at this time for the first he saw Gram, that expounder of the
new faith that he brought fresh from the Hahnemannian fount.
Ever ready to investigate, he is soon found subjecting the claims
of the new system to the test of experiment. As early as 1834
we find him with his name at the head of the list, associated
with Drs. Gray and Hull, as editors, and eight laymen, engaged
in the publication of The American Journal of Homeopathia.
Of this, however, only four numbers seem to have been pub-
lished. Dr. Hull says that it was too early-too much in ad-
vance of public opinion.
Dr. Vanderburgh remained in the city, where he established
a lucrative business, his patrons embracing the wealth and in-
telligence of the city. Not only was his business among resi-
dents of the city; they rushed in summer to their country villas
to enjoy the cool and quiet of rural life, and here, by telegram,
he was often summoned to attend upon the sick. Thus the
fame of Homœopathy spread. In 1840 he purchased Linwood
Hills, the name given to the residence that he made his home
up to the time of his death. His introduction of Homœopathy
into this county, and the facts connected therewith, have be-
come history. He contributed some valuable papers to the
literature of Homœopathy. His letter to Judge Cowen, in de-
fence of Dr. Henry D. Paine, then of Newburgh, N. Y., sets
forth the claims of the new system upon the enlightened judg-
ment of the age in a masterly manner.
Dr. Vanderburgh's mind was peculiar; his conclusions were
so often the result of intuition. This ran through a large por-
tion of the writings of his later years He practiced medicine
from a love of his profession. He became absorbed in his cases.
In speaking of patients he rarely called them by name. He
usually designated them as "the cardiac case with valvular
disease," or the man with diabetes," etc. He was kind to
the poor, as thousands could testify. His advice was sought at
his home, on the highway, in the railroad station, on the rail-
car, on the steamer, at his dinner, at the hotel in the city, in bed
(C
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
633
The
and out of bed. He never turned a deaf ear to "a case."
first few words of the description, or the looks of the patient at
once aroused the spirit of scientific inquiry within him. He
was proverbial for punctuality in his appointments, and woe-
betide the man who kept him waiting in the consultation room.
A homily was the certain penalty.
Dr. Vanderburgh was first President of our County Society
and remained so up to the time of his death.
About a year ago it was first discovered that his vital powers
were beginning to fail. Exposure to the inclemencies of the
weather laid him aside. His attack consisted of an utter pros-
tration of all muscular power. Yet it was not paralytic. Still
he was as helpless as an infant. With this he had paroxysms of
dyspnoea, with a sensation of impending suffocation. The
dyspnoea, however, was gradually removed during the Spring,
so that during the Summer all that was noticeable was debility
and a wasting away of the fatty and muscular tissues, until he
became only bone and tendon, with only slight traces of the
muscles remaining. The vital forces continued slowly to give
away. No disease of the specific organ could be made out, be-
yond cardiac hypertrophy, which had been his life-long com-
panion. No effusion ensued. He died without a struggle; his
attendant telling me that he died as one going to sleep. So
peaceful was his end.
He several times cheered the hearts of his wife and others of
his friends by expressing his faith in the Redeemer, thus leaving
on record faith in Christ at the stay and support of his weary
spirit.
J. F. MERRITT, M, D.
Dr. H. M. Smith says: It is said that Dr. Vanderburgh re-
ceived his name as follows: When he was born, in 1788, the
adoption of the Federal Constitution being the great event of the
time, Chancellor Kent, then a young lawyer, suggested that the
infant Van Der Burgh should be named in commemoration of it,
Federal Constitution Vanderburgh, but his mother objecting,
the Constitution was omitted. At the age of nineteen he received
his license to practice medicine and came to New York, at the
end of two full courses of lectures, and began to practice. His
health failing in 1811 he went to Geneva, N. Y., where he prac-
ticed ten years. He gave up his practice there to Dr. Martyn
Paine, then living in Montreal, and returned to New York. His
634
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
practice was so large there that Dr. Paine was induced to follow.
In a letter to Dr. Smith, dated February 1, 1867, Dr. Vander-
burgh says: "I was attending Mr. M., in Pearl street, one of
whose toes was set at right angles with his foot by a contraction
of its tendon. I advised him to have it divided. Not without
Mott's approbation, he replied. The next day Dr. Paine and I
met at his house and he dismissed us both. Thirty days there-
after I met him walking the street with his toe adjusted. I asked
him how it was done, and he said that Dr. Gram had given him
some sugar pellets, of the size of a mustard seed, which straight-
ened his toę. As I had picked up gems from all classes, and
having no prejudices to encounter, I straightway introduced
myself to Dr. Gram. I found him working a gigantic intellect
with the simplicity of a child, and entirely unconscious of its
power." Smith says he does not know the date of his adoption
of Homœopathy. It was previous to 1834, for he was then cor-
responding secretary of the New York Homoeopathic Society.
It is said that Vanderburgh introduced Homœopathy into
Connecticut in 1837. While on a friendly visit to New Milford
he prescribed for the wife of Dr. Charles Taylor. Her rapid re-
covery induced her husband to adopt Homoeopathy, and he be-
came the first resident homoeopathic physician in the State. Dr.
Barlow says in his report to the American Institute that Dr.
Vanderburgh studied medicine with Dr. Wright, of New Mil-
ford, Conn., and that Dr Hall, an old student of his, thinks he
was licensed by the Medical Faculty of Litchfield county. He
then attended lectures in New York, in 1807 or 1808, received
his diploma and commenced to practice in the town of Beekman,
where he was born. After a few years he removed to Hudson,
Columbia county, remaining there until 1815. when he went to
Geneva, Ontario county, N. Y., where he practiced until he re-
moved to New York City, in 1823 or 1824. There he remained
in active practice until 1843 and then removed to Rhinebeck,
Dutchess county, and practiced there until near the time of his
death. He had four children: Mary, who married John B. James,
of Albany; Charlotte, who married a Mr. McKinn, son of a Con-
gressman of Baltimore, Md. The other two children died in
infancy.
A sketch of Vanderburgh, with a portrait, was published in
the U. S. Med. Surg. Journal for April, 1868, and is as follows:
OF HOMEOPATHY.
635
The lithogragh which we present to our readers in this num-
ber is that of one of the oldest and most successful American
homoeopathists—now, unhappily, no more, he having closed his
earthly labors, January 23, 1868, at the advanced age of 80.*
In answer to a request for an autobiography, to accompany his
lithograph, we received the following, which will be read with
interest, though it gives but an imperfect view of his life:
MY DEAR SHIPMAN:
I received your kind letter on my death bed, reminding me of
our early acquaintance; and, although the destiny of distance
divides us, I have never forgotten your friendship. In watching
the slow current of life, retarded by one stream and quickened
by another, I have but little time to comply with your wishes.
You ask me for my photograph and its biographical appendage.
My photograph I send you. My homœopathic appendage began
with Dr. Gram.
When he arrived in New York, Gram was a friendless stranger;
and when he opened his little manuscript no faith was found in
his statements. The city was then under the spell of Post,
Hosack and Mott; the schools were animated with their errors,
and there was no time for them to look at atoms when the masses
were before them.
Gram was grave and thoughtful, and gained his ascendency
over his little circle by the interest he manifested in his future
ministry; and when unheard of doctrines-such as little doses—
came forth, one by one, they were tested on the sick, the results
of infinitesimal doses were recorded, and Wilson, Gray and
Curtis saw the light, with its guiding star before them. These
three scholars, with one teacher, lit the lamp whose cruse of oil
will never empty until the educated errors of our ancient
brethren are buried beneath their own monuments.
At this time, if I remember, the sale of my medical errors
had reached $10,000 a year, in the higher circles of society,
before my acquaintance with Gram, and my introduction to him
* Dr. Merritt, in the American Observer, makes Dr. V.'s age something
less than 80; but, if our memory serves us, Dr. V. stated, when we last met
him, in October, 1865, that he was then 84. It is quite likely, however,
that Dr. M. had access to some family record, as we had not.
O
636
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
enabled me to plant the reformation of medical science on that
circle to great advantage.
*
*
*
I then drew to my aid the lamented Curtis-the brightest
star in Homœopathy, expanding so rapidly under Gram's tuition
that he (Gram) once said to me, "I should not care to go to
Heaven if I could not meet with Curtis there."
*
*
*
*
I made it his interest to be my preceptor; and, with his guid-
ance, many time honored errors were consigned to oblivion, and
many hoary prejudices were marched off the stage.
Now, my circle strengthened; and, expanding by the radiating
force from the centre, gave more room for chosen friends to
move in; and I can number one, two, three, four and five who
have gained handsome practices on the basis of this circle, with
no interference whatever with any rights or privileges of my
own.
The "Organon" is the book in which the reformation of
medical science commenced; and whether we are called to be the
instructors of others, or are only desiring security and precision
to our own system, we cannot do better than resort at once to
that oracle.
It seems to me now, that I may have wasted the energies of
my life on the study of "Vital Forces," with no benefit to any
other but myself; and although I have been guided by Hahne-
mann's rule in the choice of the drug my diagnosis was always
based on the conditions of the disease, and if the diagnosis of the
drug corresponded with the diagnosis of the disease it cheered
me onward to success.
Very truly yours,
F. VANDERBURGH, M. D.
(Per. D. W. V., M. D.)
Rhinebeck, N. Y., Oct. 18th, 1867.
Though Dr. Vanderburgh retired from active practice some
years ago, he never left the harness till called to his death bed.
Perhaps no man in the country was in greater requisition in all
parts of it than he; and surely no man ever gained more fully and
entirely the confidence of his patients. His entrance into the
sick room dispelled many a dark and heavy cloud; buoyant and
ever cheerful himself, he seemed to have an unfailing supply of
buoyancy and good cheer to impart to his patients. He may
OF HOMEOPATHY.
637
have been ruffled and disturbed sometimes, but it was never our
fortune to meet him when he was so. When engaged in a very
extensive and laborious practice, the care and fatigue of which
would have disturbed the temper of one less favored, he always
seemed full of life and energy, and, at the same time, the quin-
tessence of good humor. Some of us must confess that it is more
easy to applaud such a man than to imitate him.
((
The secret of his success, however, lay in the enthusiasm with
which he gave himself to his profession; the weight of years did
not repress it, as the following incident will show: In '65 he
passed through this city, on his way to La Salle, with a patient
whom he had escorted from New York. The husband said, on
the day after their arrival, "Well, Doctor, you will stay with us
a few days and rest yourself." No," said Dr. V., "I must re-
turn to-morrow." ((
So soon?" replied the host; " well, what can
I do to entertain you?" "Oh, show me some sick folks?" A
man at eighty or more, who could rest himself by examining
and prescribing for "sick folks," is just the man that "sick
folks" would be likely to seek after, all his life long; and this
was the experience of Dr. V. Those who can imitate his ex-
ample will surely share his experience.
G
About one year before his death he contracted severe pleuro-
pneumonia, induced by exposure to inclement weather in con-
nection with professional duties, which produced an attack of
dyspnoea. Evidence of disease diminished somewhat during the
warm weather of summer, but increased with the return of
winter. His constitution gradually yielded to the infirmities of
age and encroachments of disease, and without suffering he
peacefully expired January 23, 1868, in his 80th year. (Cleave's
Biography. World's Conv., vol. 2, pp. 441, 451, 487. N. E. Med.
Gaz., March, 1871. Trans. Am. Inst. Hom., 1871. Trans. N. Y.
State Hom. Soc., 1863. Idem, vol. 6, p. 271. U. S. Med. Surg.
Jour., April, 1868. Am. Hom. Obs., vol. 5, p. 157.)
1
Was the student of Hans
Dr. H. M. Smith says:
VAN BEUREN, LOUIS FOLK.
Burch Gram, in New York, in 1832.
Dr. Louis Folk Van Beuren was a student of Dr. Gram about the
year 1832 or 1833; when or where he graduated, or where he
afterwards resided, I have been unable to ascertain. (N. E.
Med. Gaz., March, 1871. World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 449.)
638
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
VARLEZ, LOUIS JOSEPH. Dr. Varlez was born at Lens
(Hainault), July 23, 1792. His parents were of modest fortunes,
and were obliged to make sacrifices to give him an education at
the College of Oratoriens, at Soignies. The following appeared
in the Klinik: Brussels, October 11th.-Scarcely has the grave
closed over the eminent and much-lamented Dr. Mouremans
when I have the sad duty of reporting to you another severe
affliction by which the homeopathic circles in this country have
been visited. Dr. Varlez, one of the most celebrated physicians
of our capital, died yesterday (on the 10th of October, 1874) in
the advanced age of 82 years. Born in Lens, in the province of
Hainault, he had taken part in the campaigns in Germany, and
when the revolution of 1830 broke out in Brussels he was sur-
geon in chief of the military hospitals. Since the year 1834 he
had undertaken the direction of the homoeopathic school, and
defended its doctrines in a talented manner in the Academie de
Médecine, whose corresponding member he was. From this time
he has continued to practice the new medical doctrine, and has
surely essentially contributed to gain for it numerous adherents
in our country. Therefore, he was also honored by us with the
name of the "Nestor of Homœopathy."
Varlez was adorned with the cross of the Legion of Honor and
with several other orders. Nevertheless, he did not forget in
his happy days his former companions-in-arms in the village of
Lens, but made to them some years ago, a considerable present,
as he has also adorned the termination of his earthly career with
many other acts of beneficence. May he rest in peace!
A writer in the Revista Omiopatica says: The homoeopathic
school has met with a great loss in the death of Dr. Varlez, hon-
orary president of the Hahnemannian Association of Paris,
Academy of Homœopathy of Madrid. He was a valiant sup-
porter of the doctrine of Hahnemann. He was 82 years of age.
Leipzig, Nov. 13, 1874.-Dr. Varlez, an old Belgian homœo-
path, died Oct. 9, in his 82d year.
Dr. Stockman says that towards 1832 Homoeopathy made its
appearance in Brussels. Drs. Varlez and Carlier were the first
who practiced the new medicine in that city. In 1835 Dr. Var-
lez founded a gratuitous dispensary there, which he did not
abandon until his benevolent intentions were frustrated by his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
639
It was Varlez who with others, in 1837,
failing strength.
founded the Belgian Homœopathic Society.
In a very interesting letter written to the editor of the Biblio-
theque Homœopathique, in 1869, Dr. Varlez says: Accept my
offer of 200 francs for the homoeopathic hospital you propose to
establish in Paris. Since 1829, when I began to study
Homœopathy, my convictions have been unchanged upon the
incontestible advantages of the Hahnemannian doses. At my
outstart I cured, with the advice of Hahnemann, a serious
chronic disease which Brousais and seven other physicians of
Brussels had declared incurable. This cure was made in a per-
son who was dear to me, and was due to the Hahnemannian pre-
scriptions; since that time I have invariably persevered in the
use of small doses. (Revista Omiopatica, Dec., 1874, p. 192.
Allg. hom Zeit., vol. 89, p. 168. Trans. World's Conv., 1876,
vol. 2, p. 308. Zeits. fuer Hom. Klinik, vol. 23, p. 160. El Crit.
Medico., vol. 15, p. 528. Bibl. Hom., vol. 2, p. 61; vol. 6, p. 352.)
VEHSEMEIER.
Leipsic, June 3, 1871.—The privy Coun-
cilor, Dr. Vehsemeier, of Berlin, is dead. This is the extent of
the notice in the Zeitung. Puhlmann says that Dr. Vehsemeier
from 1834 to 1839 issued a Popular Journal of Homœopathic
Treatment, by Wahrhold, and in 1838-41 the Annals of Homœ-
opathy. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 82, p. 184. World's Conv., vol. 2,
p. 33. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 597–670.
VEITH, PROF. S. Practiced in Vienna. First had his
attention called to Homoeopathy in 1818 by the army surgeon,
Krastiansky, in Klattau. Practiced veterinary, and used it in
the Veterinary Hospital as early as 1825.
Rapou, in 1846 visited the institutions of Vienna. He pre-
sented himself to Dr. Veith, professor in the veterinary school,
who was the special physician of a public dispensary, directed
by a young physician. Veith, brother of the Father, and his
successor at the school veterinary, is very nearly upon the line
of Schmidt-perhaps with less exaggeration in posology.
(World's Conv., vol. 2, pp. 199, 200, 204. Kleinert, pp. 165, 242.
Rapou, vol. 1, pp 209, 258, etc.; vol. 2, pp. 123, 290 Bibl. Hom.,
vol. 9, p. 89.)
VEITH, J. M. (Pastor.) Was pastor and canon of the
cathedral of St. Stephen's, in Vienna. Became converted to
640
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
Homœopathy about 1825-26. In order to more successfully
fulfill the duties of his position among the poor he studied
medicine, passing his examination in 1820. He then devoted
himself to theology. In 1825 he began to use homoeopathic
treatment with good effect. During the cholera epidemic of
1831-32 he was especially successful with homoeopathic remedies
and so informed Hahnemann. Father Veith, writing from
Vienna, Oct. 10, 1831, describes his homeopathic treatment and
then concludes: This is my treatment which I have invariably
used with universal success. I must confess that nothing can
be more pardonable than an error of judgment in the treatment
of cholera in its first outbreak. Ars longa vita brevis,-how
short is our experience in so violent a disease the first symptom of
which is the last of many other complaints! The numerous
pamphlets, instructions, advices for curing, etc., which we every-
where meet with, confirm the opinon, at all times too generally
entertained, that cholera and diarrhoea ought to be treated by
warm diapnoic and diaphoretic remedies, whereas, the exact
contrary is the only correct and useful course to be pursued.
The same numerous instances of false cures turning into nervous
and other diseases cannot excite surprise, as many patients pay
no attention to the diarrhoea which for one or two days precedes
an attack of cholera. No cases treated from the beginning on
homœopathic principles disclosed such instances of pseudo-
cures."
"
Rapou says of 1832: The Father Veith distinguished him-
self by his great knowledge and enjoyed great popularity. With
no other resource than his talent, he assumed the post of the
direction of the veterinary school during which he employed
the functions possible to the better sort of veterinary medicine
and which are in use today. Weary of occupying that position,
he longed for the ecclesiastical state whither his soul prompted
him. He became official preacher of the court without renounc-
ing his profession. These sermons always attracted a crowd. He
also followed, incessantly, the study of Homoeopathy, obtained a
diploma, and began with zeal to practice that art; his clientage
became immense, the epidemic of cholera which then appeared
he combatted with great success. His reputation extended
greatly and he became known throughout Germany as one of
the most skillful physicians for the cholera. Meanwhile the
OF HOMEOPATHY.
64I
Archbishop of Vienna sought to forbid him the practise of medi-
cine, its incessant preoccupations not being in accordance with
the duties of a minister. To-day Father Veith is no more than
an amateur physician and he is resigned to relinquish all the in-
fluence upon our school which arose from his many years of
arduous labor.
Rapou visiting Vienna in 1846 says that time had dispersed
the friends he had formerly met there; that Veith had entirely
ceased any intercourse with the medical world.
Rapou quotes from a letter by Father Veith: It may not be
denied that the high dilutions (12. 15) may be efficacious against
the cholera, but Veith says that while he believes in dynamiza-
tion yet he prefers the lower potencies, and has even given a
grain of the poppy or of hemp. Rapou says that Veith repudiated
Isopathy. In 1836, when the subject was interesting German
physicians, Veith wrote to Griesselich saying: The simple law
of similia similibus is to-day the most solid of principles; an
exaggeration of that law therapeutic is that which is called
Isopathy. Father Veith rejected emphatically the administra-
tion of products secreted by another person and attributed to
that proceeding many psoric infections diverse and very danger-
ous.
In 1832 he published a book on "Healing and Prohpylaxis of
Cholera." (Rapou, vol. 2, p. 124. Fisher. Biog. Denhmal.)
VELEX, JEAN LORENZO. Was a physician of Seville,
Spain, who embraced Homœopathy about 1834. He translated
the lectures of Leon Simon into Spanish (Rapou, vol. 1, p. 178.
World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 324.
WAAGE. Mr. Waage was a clergyman who lived in North-
ampton county about 1830, and was, with several others, greatly
instrumental in introducing Homœopathy among the people.
He was also an officer of the Allentown Academy.
WAGNER, JOSEPH. Leipsic, July 12, 1875, Dr. Joseph
Wagner, in Funskirchen, is dead. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 91,
p. 24.
WAHLENBERG, GEORGE.
Leidbeck says that the
honor of having introduced Homoeopathy into Sweden belongs
by right to my venerable teacher, Dr. George Wahlenberg, Pro-
642
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
fessor Linnæus at the University of Upsala. Having to lecture
on botany and pharmacia organica in 1826 he felt himself bound
to study even works on Homœopathy. He never practiced
Homœopathy himself, but having obtained some medicines from
Dr. Stapf, in Germany, he soon became convinced of the truth of
the fundamental doctrines of Homoeopathy. It was at his
lectures that I first heard of the system, and of Hahnemann's
Organon and Materia Medica Pura. I then resolved to put the
new doctrine to a practical test. My friend and fellow-student,
Dr. Soudén, having come to the same resolution, we were the
first Swedish physicians who practically embraced Homœopathy.
We soon made a convert of Dr. Sönderberg, an eminent botanist
and ornithologist, who had settled in the ancient little town,
Sigtuna. Unfortunately his useful and promising career was
cut short in 1835 by typhus fever.
Of the few physicians who had at that time embraced the
homœopathic system, I am the only one still in practice. Pro-
fessor Wahlenberg, M. D., our teacher, died in 1850, of marasmus
senilis, etc.
Wahlenberg was a contributor to the Hahnemann Jubilee of
1829. His name appears in the Zeitung list of 1829, and in
Quin's list of 1834. The Homœopathic Times of June 28, 1851,
notes as follows: By the death of Professor G. Wahlenberg,
M. D., Sweden has lost one of its great men, and the University
of Upsala one of its members, who acquired for it fresh laurels
in Europe. For many years he had adopted the system of
Hahnemann. Though he neither practised it himself nor was
he successful in making many converts, yet he strenuously
maintained the principles of Homœopathy in his lectures on
Materia Medica. He was the author of many eminent works,
which proved him no unworthy occupant of the chair of Lin-
næus, viz: "Flora Lapponica," Berlin, 1812. De Climatæ et
Vegetatione Helvetia Septentrionalis," Zurich, 1813. "Flora
Carpatorum," Gottingen, 1814. "Flora Upsaliensis," Upsala,
1820. "Flora Svoecica," Upsala, 1824-26, etc.
He died March 22, 1851, at the age of 70, and is one of the
many instances of scientific celebrities who at an advanced age
have embraced the truth of Hahnemann's doctrines. (World's
Hom. Conv., vol. 2, p. 342. London Hom. Times, vol. 2, p. 686.
Kleinert, 166).
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
643
WAHRHOLD. Was a pioneer of Homœopathy in Prussia,
and was in practice in Berlin about 1834.
(World's Conv., vol.
2, p. 33.)
WALTER, W. Was one of the pioneers of Homœopathy in
Ireland.
WEBER, G. A.
Weber's name appears in the Zeitung list
of 1832. Also in that of Quin. He was physician to the Prince
of Solms-Lich in Darmstadt. During an attack of a very malig-
nant epidemic of measles, Dr. Weber treated 100 children by the
homœopathic method without losing one. This greatly excited
the hostility of the apothecaries. The apothecaries in Prussia
had been successful in enforcing the ordinance against self dis-
pensing, and the apothecaries at Darmstadt were led to have the
following law or order, which was published by the government
on June 13, 1832, in Mayence, Giessen and Darmstadt: "There
is no permission granted to homoeopathic physicians which allows
them to dispense their own medicine, and by this is meant the
dilution and preparation of medicines obtained at the apothe-
caries' shops. The law can make no difference between homoeo-
pathic and other physicians, both alike must prescribe medicines
for patients out of the apothecaries' shops alone. But it is in the
power of homoeopathic physicians to be present when the apothe-
caries prepare medicines to see that the requisite attention be
bestowed on them."
Dr. Weber was afterwards fined $30.00 for giving medicines
gratuitously to his patients. This fine and the publication of
this prohibition to dispense their own medicine induced 1,300
families in Oberhesse and the neighboring provinces to draw up
a petition to the ministry to remove this hard prohibition. The
ministry refused to interfere with the law. They then petitioned
the Grand Duke, but also without effect. Dr. Sundheim, an
advocate, then espoused the matter and it went before the Baden
Chamber of Deputies. It was decided on Oct. 2, 1833, to peti-
tion the prince to appoint a committee of physicians of each
school to determine the best way of ensuring instruction in the
new method.
2d That physicians be allowed to give homoeopathic medi-
cines gratuitously.
3d. Only licensed physicians were allowed to practice Home-
644
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
opathy; and candidates were to be examined in Homœopathy at
the State examinations.
The following is from the Zeitung: Hannover.-With great
grief I report that on the night from the 20th to the 21st of
March Dr. Weber, the royal physician and chief medical coun-
selor, passed away. His death came unexpected to all, though
he had complained for several years of ailments of the stomach;
these were probably caused by an ulcer, which suddenly per-
forated the stomach. Homœopathy had been much benefited
by his prominent position, and he would still have been able to
do much to advance it; it, therefore, loses much in him and his
loss is to be deeply lamented. Weber was only 53 years of age.
Death rages with furious swiftness in our ranks. You will re-
ceive a detailed necrology. (Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 1, p. 114.
A. H. Z., vol. 72, p. 112. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 7, 487, etc. Ameke.,
p. 274.)
WEIHE. According to the Zeitung and Quin lists of 1832-4,
he was practicing in Hervorden.
WEINSEISEN. According to the Zeitung list of 1832, Dr.
Weinseisen was then practicing in Lofer, Bavaria.
WERBER. The Zeitung list of 1832 locates this man at
Freiberg, as does Quin in 1834. Rapou says that he was pro-
fessor in the university at that place. He says: Professor
Werber is a writer of the school of Hegel, and introduced all the
nonsense of our polemical philosophy. (Kleinert, p. 230. Rapou,
vol. 2, pp. 611, 621, 624, 625.)
WERNER. Quin's list gives Werner as a homoeopathic
physician in Frankenburg, Hesse-Cassel, in 1834.
WESSELHOEFT, WILLIAM. The facts in the life of
this distinguished pioneer of Homœopathy have been so happily
presented in a "Memorial of William Wesselhoft" by Miss
Elizabeth P. Peabody (Boston: N. C. Peabody. 1859) that we
present the book here almost in its entirety:
"The good die first;
While those whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket."
This has been the exclamation of Dr. Wesselhoft's friends,
alternating with the words of another poet,-
"Our blessings brighten as they take the wing,”.
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
645
ever since his death; for modesty, the poetical modesty founded
on the most dignified self-respect, was with him a trait so pre-
dominant they feel that this community has "entertained an
angel unawares.'
And he must not pass away without some slight memorial of
the sentiments with which he inspired those who knew him inti-
mately. A few days after his death some friends went to his
afflicted family and proposed erecting a monument to his mem-
ory on Forest Hill. But it was their spontaneous and prevail-
ing instinct to say, "No!" It was unlike Dr. Wesselhoft to
dwell in marble palaces, even in the heyday of life. He had
never any disposition to tower among his fellows with conven-
tional superiorities. Everything about him was of intrinsic
A grave bursting into flowers, with his name carved
by the hands of domestic love and personal friendship on a low-
lying block of the mountain crystal, was in better keeping with
the spirit of his life, which, unostentatious and rich with the life
of nature, delighted to call forth health and beauty in others for
their own sweet sake, by the operation of laws—
nature.
C
"That keep the stars from wrong,
Through which the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong."
Dr. William Wesselhoft was the second son of Karl Wessel-
hoeft, who, with his brother-in-law, Friedrich Frommann, owned
the largest publishing house in the university town of Jena dur-
ing the palmy days of Saxe-Weimar. He had moved from the
town of Chemnitz when William was four years old. Karl Wes-
selhoeft was a man of great energy and decision, and some se-
verity of character, but his wife was a woman of refined temper-
ament and intellect, of tender sensibility and disposition; loving
the beauty of nature; forever garnering "the harvest of a quiet
eye;" and William, her darling, inherited her traits of mind and
body.
Born in 1794, when all Germany was just made newly con-
scious of the genius of her sons by Goethe, Schiller and Jean
Paul, it was William Wesselhoft's happy fortune to open his
eyes upon life in Saxe-Weimar's richest era of science and liter-
ature. The great Goethe was a familiar guest at the home of
his uncle, Frommann, which was the rendezvous of the literati
of Jena at that time; and not unfrequently at his own father's
house. When William was ten years old, the model student of
646
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
the Eighteenth Century took a kindly interest in his commenc-
ing education, and gave pencils and paper and friendly councils
to him and his brother Robert (who was a year younger), in
order to induce them to draw; for Goethe considered drawing an
essential of early education; and it is well known he excelled in
this accomplishment himself, and pursued it to his latest days.
This was but the first omen of the beautiful culture and
superior society whose advantages our friend enjoyed. Though
Karl Wesselhoft, like the rest of his contemporaries, did not es-
cape the impoverishment widely produced in Germany by the
wars of Napoleon, he did not stint the education. A German of
the old country considers science and literature as much a neces-
sity of life as bread, if not as breath itself.
He had residing in his family, for private tutor of his children,
the celebrated De Wette, afterwards Professor of Theology at
Berlin, and later at Basle: and, after De Wette, the excellent Dr.
Grossman, who died Superintendent of the Lutheran churches at
Leipsic. This family school consisted of William, his brothers,
Edward and Robert, his sister, Wilhelmina, and a ward of his
Uncle Frommann's, Minna Herzlieb, celebrated in the memoires
of Goethe as one of those ladies who won the great poet's heart
for a season.
The education shared by these girls was therefore æsthetic,
and a very careful one; as may be inferred from the circum-
stance, that Wilhelmina, when but fifteen or sixteen years of
age, went for a year to the house of the clergyman Hecker, near
Leipsic, to teach his children French and other things; and
there, as much of a playfellow as a governess, laid the founda-
tion of a lasting friendship with Ferdinanda Hecker, who was
at the time but fourteen years of age, and ever afterwards visited
the Wesselhofts at Jena, and at length married Robert.
The correspondence with his sister, which Dr. William Wes-
selhæft diligently kept up, during all his American life, until
her death in 1844, formed a little treasury of her letters, which,
with those of his beloved mother, he carefully preserved to re-
peruse in his old age.
In 1809 William Wesselhoft became a pupil at the Real-
Schule of Nuremburg, then under the direction of G. H. von
Schubert, in whose autobiography is made frequent mention of
this favorite pupil of the great natural philosopher and psychol-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
647
ogist. Here, besides studying Latin and Greek, he began his
profound studies in the natural sciences, including anatomy, of
which he was especially fond; and he also became very expert
in anatomical drawings. Throughout his life, all branches of
natural history were favorite pursuits. His botanical studies
were very extensive; and his choice hortus siccus, with written
explanations of every plant, is in the possession of his wife, her-
self an ardent lover of flowers. During all his student life, he
was in the habit of extensive pedestrian tours to make personal
explorations in botany, mineralogy and geology. His collections
of mineral and geologic specimens he very recently put in the
hands of his friend, Dr. Adolphe Douai, who has undertaken to
teach these sciences, among others, to the students in the Per-
kins Institution for the Blind, whose handling of the specimens
serves all the purposes of sight.
But Dr. Wesselhoft did not confine himself to mere accumu-
lations of phenomena in the different departments of nature. He
penetrated into the principles of transcendental physics, and
completed his studies with the celebrated Oken himself; with
whose numerous works, among others, his library is enriched.
In 1813, being nineteen years of age, he entered the Univer-
sity of Jena, with high qualifications for profiting by his lectures
on the Philosophy of History and other sciences; and there he
graduated, seven years after, as Doctor of Medicine; having per-
fected his general and medical education at the Universities of
Berlin and Wurzburg, at each of which he resided for a season,
and at which he passed the second and third examinations,
necessary in Germany for obtaining a license for medical practice.
Nor did these eighteen or twenty years of school and univer-
sity education make William Wesselhoft a mere book-worm.
Never was a scholar less pedantic in his manners. While at
Jena, he enjoyed, as has been already mentioned, the æsthetic
society of cultivated women as well as men, at his Uncle From-
mann's, who delighted to have his gifted and cultivated nephew
to adorn his reunions with the modest charm of his refined man-
ners and mind.
This was the time when Goethe was so much interested in
meteorology; and William Wesselhoeft very much enjoyed
making observations on the clouds for him, at the Observatory
of Jena. He did this constantly for a year, and, by making
•
648
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
+
sketches of the clouds in water-colors, turned to account that
skill in drawing to which his illustrious friend had given him
the first impulse in his early childhood. Goethe afterwards gave
up the notion of determining the weather by the classification of
the forms of clouds, and laughed at it himself. But Dr. Wessel-
hæft used often playfully to allude to his having been clerk of
the weather for a year; and to his latest day, was exceedingly
fond of looking at the skies, and observing the times and sea-
sons and circumstances of the strati, cumuli, schirri, &c. A pen-
cil, which he always cherished as a perfect relic, because it was
one that Goethe gave him while they were pursuing these in-
vestigations together, is still preserved among the family treas-
ures.
But Dr. Wesselhoft was not drawn into political indifferency
by his intimacy with the scientific and artistic Goethe. He gave
his heart and hand, with all the ardor of youthful love, to the
noble young men who had returned from fighting the battles of
German nationality, in which Korner fell in 1806. When in
Berlin, in 1819, he became very intimate with "the old Jahn,'
who invented the modern system of gymnastics, and had estab-
lished in that city a gymnasium as early as 1811. In the
"Memoirs of Dr. Follen," published in Boston in 1842, there is
quite an extended notice of this Frederic Ludwig Jahn. He
published a work upon German nationality ("Deutsches Volks-
thum "), whose doctrine was, by means of thorough physical
education, to produce a manly character in the German youth,
in the spirit of the motto which he adopted for himself and his
students "Frisch, frei, frölich, und fromm" (Strong, free,
joyous and pious). As Dr. Follen's memoirs are accessible to
everybody, we will simply refer to this account, instead of re-
producing it. The Wesselhofts and Dr. Follen were intimately
acquainted. The friend referred to in his memoirs, who induced
Dr. Follen to go to Jena to lecture on the Pandects, was Dr.
Robert Wesselhoft, then a lawyer and holding office under the
government, and who afterwards bravely wrote a pamphlet to
defend Dr. Follen against the infamous slanders of the "Memoirs
of Herr von Doering." From this pamphlet are given many
extracts, that not only throw great light on the noble character
and career of Dr. Follen in Germany, but necessarily involve a
د.
OF HOMEOPATHY.
649
vivid view of the spirit and character of all the German students
of that era, including Jahn's scholars.
In a slight memoir of Dr. Wesselhoft that has appeared in the
Weimarer Zeitung since his death, it is said that he shared with
many of Jahn's scholars "die Wohnung auf der Hausvogtei, und
alsbald die Gewissheit, in Vaterland keine Anstellung zu
finden."
This non committal sentence of the timid conservative friend
who penned that memoir covers facts which may be less darkly
hinted at in our free America. The Burschenschaften, or secret
political societies for promoting the German nationality, and, in
the end, uniting Germany under one government, originated
at Jena, while William Wesselhoft and his brother Robert were
students; and none were more engaged and active in them than
they. By correspondence, the mother-society spread its organi-
zation through all the German universities; but the branch-
societies took different complexions, according to local influ-
ences. Some merely contented themselves with making a
theoretical opposition to the Landmannschaften, which were
aristocratic, or conservative, societies. Some went prospectively
into details as to what was to be done to rid Germany of the in-
cubus of the reigning families, who farmed it out for their own
pleasure, reckless of the welfare of their subjects; and these
were disposed to re-establish the republican forms which were in-
digenous in Germany. Many of them were inspired by Dr.
Follen with the idea of a Christian republic, to be evolved from
themselves as elements, by their earnest individual strivings
after Christian perfection and national progress: In Dr. Fol-
len's memoirs, to which we have already referred, are some elab-
orate details concerning the societies of this phase, taken partly
from Robert Wesselhoft's pamphlet spoken of above; to which
we are the more willing to refer our readers, because there can
hardly be a more profitable study for American youth than those
particular gymnastic communities which Dr. Follen's spirit
ruled.
But when, not long after, the strictly individual attempt of the
rash and theory-intoxicated Sand had given a bad name to the
patriots, these Burschenschaften were betrayed to the govern-
ment by a traitor; and all the societies were confounded together
in a sweeping condemnation-the Christian Follen and his
650
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
friends with Red Republicans. The discovery of the Carbonari
in Italy was simultaneous with the discovery of the Burschen-
schaften in Germany; and the arrests in Germany were as un-
expected and indiscriminate as those in Italy. Thus, among
others, William Wesselhoft, who was at the moment pursuing
his studies in Berlin, was thrown into the Hausvogtei, which is
a prison for political offenders; and Robert Wesselhoft, into the
fortress of Magdeburg. William Wesselhoft, however, found
means to escape, after a two months' imprisonment, and was for
a long time after concealed in his father's house at Jena.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the im-
pulse developed itself within him to go and assist the struggling
Greeks; whose movement for freedom came like the sound of a
trumpet, from the old glorious times, upon all the cultivated
young men in Europe, and even reached those of America. It
was characteristic of the generosity and courage of William
Wesselhoft, that, with his all-sided medical education perfected,
-and which included even a knowledge of the manufacture of
surgical instruments,-he should become surgeon to the German
Philhellenen, just as the news came of the disastrous battle of
Peta, in which all the officers of the corps of French and Ger-
mans had perished, with two thirds of the members. He started
well equipped with the furniture of a surgeon The quantities
of lint scraped and bandages oversewed by the enthusiastic
sympathy of his sister Wilhelmina, his friend Ferdinanda, and
others who were in the secret, were so ample that they have
served him for his surgery all his life, and are not yet ex-
hausted. For he was disappointed of this expedition. When
he arrived at Marseilles, he found an injunction laid upon the
vessel. No more volunteers could go to Greece.
-
From Marseilles, he went back to Switzerland, where already
his friends Follen and Beck, -the latter a step-son of his old
tutor, De Wette, -and De Wette himself had fled; and found
congenial callings at the ancient University of Basle, which was
then recently re-opened. In this University Dr. Wesselhoft also
found employment as demonstrator of anatomy and assistant
oculist; and he remained busily occupied in instruction two
years, spending his vacations in pedestrian tours among the
mountains; for not only explorations in natural science, but a
pure love of the picturesque, was a great motive of his pedestrian
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
651
excursions at all times. The scenery of every part of Germany
that was beautiful or grand was already familiar to him by the
same means; and now that of Switzerland became so, and he was
never weary of the Alpine flora. During the latter years of his
life he cherished the hope and intention of revisiting these
scenes in Germany and Switzerland, that "haunted him like a
passion;" and when he was weary, as he often was, by the pres-
sure of his unremitting labors, nothing soothed and beguiled
him more surely than for his sons and nephews-to whom he had
given a European education—to describe to him their peregrina-
tions in those familiar scenes. The last picture that he pur-
chased in the summer in which he died was a remarkable sketch
of the Alps, painted by Leute, where the needlewood-pines
seem to whisper of their solitude, and, as he said, of his "own
youth."
The same interference of the allied powers with the German
refugees in Switzerland, that drove Drs. Follen and Beck from
Basle, compelled Dr. Wesselhoft to leave for America at the
same time. Some letters which showed his sympathy with Dr.
Follen had fallen into the hands of the agents of the despots.
He came across the ocean, however, in a different vessel, which
sailed from Antwerp, and was four months on the sea.
Exile from home and friends was a sad thing to a tempera-
ment so affectionate as Dr. Wesselhoft's; and his love of nature's
beauty, no less than the generous enthusiasm he had cherished
for the freedom and unity of Germany, had made the very soil
of his native Europe dear. But he was still young enough to
be susceptible to all the generous hopes which the ideal republi-
can of Europe reposes in the destiny of the United States of
America. He felt himself strong in the consciousness of the high
cultivation of mind which makes a man the conqueror of success,
wherever he may be placed. Immediately after his arrival he
went to Lehigh County, Penn., where was settled a German
family which he had known at home. From thence he pro-
ceeded to Northampton County, seeking a sphere for his medical
practice; and finally settled in Bath,-attracted, perhaps, by the
German population.
This was not done, however, without efforts having been made
by Drs. Follen and Beck to have him come to them in Massa-
chusetts. It was in 1825 that Prof. Ticknor, at their instance,
652
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
wrote to ask him to take charge of the Gymnasium at Cam-
bridge and Boston; which they hoped would reproduce Jahn's
establishment at Berlin, though it never did so. He refused,
however; for already a large and profitable practice was opening
upon him at Bath: and here, in the course of a few years, he
married Miss Sarah Palmer, in whose family he had become
intimate by his professional calls to it as an allopathic physician.
Both German and English were spoken in this family; and its
members had early become his warm friends.
But already he meditated the change in his practice; and as
this must risk his income, at least for some years, he spoke to
his wife of the plan before he married her. He represented to
her that his study of medicine at the greatest medical schools of
Germany—at Jena, Berlin and Wurzburg—had still left his mind
unsatisfied with any known system of therapeutics, and his prac-
tice had confirmed his doubts.
"As to therapeutics," said the lamented young James Jackson,
in his frank letters to his father from the Medical School of Paris,
in 1835,-after he had studied, not only in Boston, but in Edin-
burgh and London,—“ we have not yet come within sight of its
shores." So also felt the accomplished Wesselhoft ten years be-
fore the date of that letter, and for similar reasons, viz.: because
he was thoroughly instructed in the so-called scientific medicine
of the schools, and had measured the limitations of it, and was
himself thoroughly honest, and with sufficient faith in nature
and God to believe with George Herbert that—
"All things unto our flesh are kind
In their descent and being, as to our mind
In their ascent and cause.'
"Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.”
Not long after Dr. Wesselhoft had come to America, some of
the first physicians of Weimar, and many of his own most
respected classmates, had become converts to the therapeutics of
Hahnemann, and the latter wrote to Dr. Wesselhoft urging upon
him to make trial of the medicines, which were sent him,
together with Hahnemann's "Organon" and "Provings," by
his father, who had also become a convert to the system as
patient. At first he was averse to what seemed to be the other
absurd extreme from the then prevalent method of giving
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
653
immense doses of such medicines as Calomel, the physicians of
the day vying with each other in the bold practice of enlarging
doses to the utmost extent from which any patient could rally,
and under which numerous persons sank.
But he was very much struck with Hahnemann's "Provings.'
He felt it was no more than due respect to a man, who had
worked for twenty years himself, together with other men as
earnest as himself, in making a materia medica, to examine it
carefully. It had a quite different history, certainly, from the
quack nostrums which frequently solicit the attention of the
public; it had a scientific origin.
"}
The same love of truth and independence of tradition which
had inspired his studies with Schubert and Oken, together with
his personal modesty on the one hand and his faith in the per-
fection of nature on the other, compelled him to investigation.
And, when he had become convinced by personal observation
that Hahnemann's preparations were effective, no timid con-
servatism, no considerations of material prudence, restrained him
from dropping the methods he had already suspected of creating
as much disease as they cured, and of adopting one against which
there was, at the time, the universal prejudice which always at-
tends new discoveries.
The infinitesimal doses were the hardest part of the method for
him to accept, though his common sense had revolted from the
maximum doses of the allopathic practice. His very first ex-
periment was in a case of ozæna, whose symptoms indicated
Hahnemann's thirtieth dilution of some medicine. He said:
"I was really ashamed to give the thirtieth dilution, and sub-
stituted the sixth!" When he went to his patient the next day,
he found her sitting up in bed, with the symptoms immensely
aggravated, and very angry. It was a lesson to him which he
did not forget. The disease was cured without another dose, as
it might have been with far less suffering to the patient had he
given the finer dilution.
Among his first successes was his treatmeat of croup with
Spongia and Hepar. He communicated these cases to the best-
instructed German physicians in his neighborhood-Dr. Freytag,
a Moravian, of Bethlehem; and Dr. Detwiller, of Hellertown-
and engaged them and others in the experimental investigation.
So great was the respect that Dr. Wessolhoft's personal charac-
654
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
teristics had inspired, that, although some individuals were
angry that he would not administer to them at their desire allo-
pathic medicines, most of those who had employed him before
continued to do so, and took the small doses; for, when he be-
came convinced that the homoeopathic method was true, he felt
it to be the best evidence that the allopathic method was false;
and his conscience would not permit him to tamper with this
fearful and wonderful human frame. He used to say, that if,
when it was well constituted, it was hard to drive from it the
life, even with the whole circle of poisons, it was always easy
enough to fill it with chronic anguish, to be transmitted for
generations. There is scarcely a drug in the allopathic practice.
of which Hahnemann does not note the effects as diseases, and
give the antidotes. Dr. Wesselhoft tested these notations in his
own practice as fast as possible, and in no instance came to a
conclusion in opposition to Hahnemann's.
With views so serious and generous, it was not possible for
Dr. Wesselhoft to content himself with personal success. The
increasing interest in Homoeopathy soon suggested a Prover's
Union, of which he early became a director, and in which he was
always interested. The homoeopathic practice began to spread.
Dr. Constantine Hering, who was a student at the Medical School
of the University of Wurzburg after Dr. Wesselhoeft, and had
afterwards studied with Hahnemann himself, came, in 1833, to
Pennsylvania from Surinam, where he had been practicing for
some years. Hearing of Dr. Wesselhoft's practice, he imme-
diately sought him; and they conferred upon measures for estab-
lishing a medical school. Some highly gifted and well-educated
physicians of Philadelphia, New York, and other places, had
become converts. It is also true, and "pity 'tis, 'tis true," that
a great many practitioners sprang up all over the country, who
were not well educated in pathology or general science, but who
could take Hull's Jahr and other works of the kind, and, by
means of that tact so very common a characteristic of Americans,
treat acute and well-defined symptoms so felicitously as to
astonish and gain the confidence of multitudes. Dr. Wesselhoft
always said of these practitioners, that they did not do so much
harm as even educated allopathists necessarily do; because the
medicines, if mistaken, were generally harmless, the specifics
requiring a certain susceptibility in the patient to insure an
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
655
effect. It was chronic disease, where symptoms were obscure
aud complicated, that was the test of a fully educated homoeo-
pathic physician. Still it was mortification to him, who had the
interests of the system so much at heart, that the allopathic
physicians of our principal cities, often highly educated in gen-
eral science and accomplished in literature, should have the
chance of reproaching Homoeopathy with the ignorance of its
practitioners.
It is not worth while to go into the details of the foundation
of the school at Allentown. A company was formed, and six
acres of land purchased in a beautiful spot, and the two wings of
a large building erected, where resorted students (generally speak-
ing, allopathic physicians who had become converts to Hahne-
mann's principle). Dr. Hering became the director and chief
instructor.
But the constitution of the school was never quite satisfactory
to Drs. Hering and Wesselhoft. Too many of the company had
only a pecuniary interest in its success, and were inclined to
sacrifice the interests of the system by admitting unqualified
students.
Dr. Hering was invited into Philadelphia, where a large prac-
tice awaited him, and where he could choose those students to
whose instructions he would devote himself. Then Dr. Wessel-
hæft removed from Bath to Allentown and took up the forlorn
hope; although, by so doing, he abandoned again a large and
lucrative practice. It was, however, a vain attempt. He also
became discouraged about the school; and, in 1842, determined
to remove to Boston, Mass., although his removal to Allentown
had not proved the pecuniary disadvantage he expected it to be;
for his practice there immediately became extensive and profit-
able.
There was also a domestic reason for this removal. For a year
before he left Allentown, he had had the happiness of the society
of his brother Robert and his family. Robert Wesselhoft was,
as has been said, a distinguished lawyer in Weimar, and officer
of the government, when he was arrested, with other members.
of the Burschenschaften, and imprisoned at Magdeburg. It was
not carcere duro, like that of the Italians in Spielburg; but, dur-
ing the seven years of his imprisonment, he had considerable in-
tercourse, especially with the physicians of Magdeburg, and
656
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
devoted himself to the study of natural sciences and medicine,
and became interested in hydropathy.
Being released from prison at the accession of Frederic William
IV. of Prussia, who signalized that event by setting free all the
political prisoners, he returned to Jena, where he immediately
married, resumed the practice of his profession, and had his old
office conferred upon him again. But it was found that his long
imprisonment had not at all changed his liberal principles, and
he was the more interesting to many by reason of his long mar-
tyrdom to them. His influence, in short, was feared; and the
government, who could find no pretext for making any accusa-
tion against him, at length requested him to leave Europe, and
proposed to pay him a large sum of money-considerably more
than would cover the expense-if he would remove his family
to America.
But, while he was yet in Europe, he had gone to the water-
cure establishments of Ilmenau and Carlsbad for his own health,
which had been injured by his imprisonment and his subsequent
labors in his office; and thus he had become acquainted with the
practice of water-cure, and he came to America with quite an en-
thusiasm to spread it in the New World, where, as yet, there
was not one establishment.
Dr. William Wessel hoeft approved of water cure as an agent of
hygiene; but he succeeded in convincing his brother that it did
not take the place entirely of medication by homoeopathic reme-
dies; and Robert was initiated by his brother into the materia
medica, during his year's residence in Allentown.
But Dr. William Wesselhoeft gave his hearty sympathy to the
project of establishing the water-cure. Water was an admirable
regimen to purify the system which had been abused by drugs,
and restore its normal susceptibility to the delicate medication
of Hahnemann. When Dr. Robert Wesselhoft had been able,
during a residence of a year or two in Cambridge, to obtain some
co-operation in his plan, Dr. William Wesselhoft, who removed
to Boston meanwhile, and immediately entered upon a large and
lucrative practice, proved his most efficient aid in founding the
Brattleborough Water Cure.
There is no doubt that Dr. Wesselhoeft had the most agreeable
expectations, with respect to society, in removing from the in-
terior of Pennsylvania to Boston; as he had not been insensible
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
657
to the immense change from Saxe-Weimar to Northampton
county, where, though the population was friendly and most re-
spectable, it left the scholar and gentleman to sigh occasionally
for the circles of his youth, which Goethe had graced with front
sublime as Jove and where Jean Paul Richter poured out his rich
and beautiful humor. He doubtless expected that he should
find himself in a generous and noble intercourse with the scien-
tific physicians of Boston, who would not fail in the courteous
attention to one whose culture was nearly unparalled, in any
country, for its scientific completeness, however they might
demur to practitioners who had no regular education in pathol-
ogy. He probably looked forward to persuading them to faith-
ful examination of the new system, now that there was so favor-
able an opportunity for studying it with one who had first
anxiously explored their own ground. At all events, so gener-
ous a mind could not suppose that so serious a subject to
humanity would be dismissed with old saws of conservatism,
spiced with cavalier jokes. without even the pretence of serious
examination. Very poor seemed to him that kind of wit which
tyrannized over the medical society of Boston, compared with
the rich humor of his countryman and personal friend. Jean Paul,
-das Einige,-that had played, like the educated sunshine, over
the morning of his own life; and which, instead of terrifying
the weak and vain and susceptible, with coxcombical sneer, from
that which might perhaps be known, burst through the barriers
of the dead past, and found new worlds of life to sport in, with
the creative frolicsomeness of inventive power, irrepressible in
its glorious courage, as the spirit of Hafiz, when he proposed to
"break up the tiresome old sky."
Dr. Wesselhæft subsequently passed his own sons and nephews
through the Medical School of Boston, because he was altogether
too liberal to undervalue, in their own departments of science,
those who took no pains to inquire into his possible knowledge,
in that one ""
whose shores have not been approached within
sight" by any of them, according to the confession of their own
brightest ornament.
Besides, he wished those, whose medical education he directed,
to know all that could be said for the errors which they were to
oppose in their practice; having a serious contempt for the wis-
658
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
1
dom that preserved its own self-respect by ignoring what, if ad-
mitted, might possibly show its treasures to be folly.
Dr. Wesselhoeft, as Mr. Parker said at his funeral, when he
saw what his path was to be, had too much dignity to complain,
or rail at or ridicule others; but, with modest self-respect, pro-
ceeded to practice down opposition, for which he had ample op-
portunity.
He was not wholly alone. There were already four or five
homoeopathic physicians in and around Boston, recent converts
from Allopathy; and it was noteworthy, that the extensive and
lucrative practice which some of them had previously had took
away all color of suspicion that anything but conscientious con-
viction had led them to the adoption of the new method. Dr.
Wesselhoft's greater age and experience in this new method
naturally gave him the lead, and he was soon too much absorbed
in the excessive labors which his professional calls brought upon
him, to regret a social intercourse with his opponents, for which
he had no time. His success in the treatment of scarlet fever
opened the hearts of mothers, and forthwith introduced him into
the bosom of the most conservative families; for scarlet fever
had become the terror of Boston. Once established in the nurs-
eries, his influence and practice spread. His professional in-
come soon became so ample, that, but for the drain upon it to
support the establishment at Battleborough, "he would have
died," as a newspaper obituary of his death observed, "rolling
in wealth."
Nor was the Brattleborough Institution unsuccessful. There
were years when the receipts were $25,000. But the Wessel-
hoefts were better physicians than financiers. Their dearest
objects were other than pecuniary, in establishing the homœo-
pathic and hydropathic systems. They gave away as much
cure as they were paid for, always in the generous confidence,
that at last, if not at first, their disinterested faith would be
appreciated, and open the eyes of others to what they believed
to be great humane interests.
Besides, the revolutions of 1848 made immense drafts upon
their sympathies, especially those of Dr. William Wesselhoft,
whose position in Boston made him a centre of refuge. How
many gathered about his hospitable board for several years. A
political exile himself, he knew how to feel for the political
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
659
exile, who came here so often, without the profession or educa-
tion which secured to himself a position. Nor was it the un-
fortunate of his own countrymen alone that secured his sympathy
and aid. But we must turn away from a theme on which grati-
tude would delight to dwell.
Dr. Wesselhoft, after he was in Boston, still had students of
Homœopathy in such measure as he could attend to in his private
study, but he especially interested himself in educating the
young men of his own and brother's family, to take his place by
and by as strict Hahnemannists. When he died there were
eight times as many homoeopathic physicians in and around
Boston as there were when he came. But many of these were of
what they call the eclectic school,- mingling allopathic and
homoeopathic methods in what he conceived to be a most un-
philosophical manner, and sometimes giving allopathic doses of
homoeopathic medicines. He was a strict Hahnemannist; but
he had not any conservative bigotry. He was aware that
Hahnemann had not completed the science and art of medicine.
He accepted the progress into higher dynamization that the
thirtieth (which Hahnemann had suggested as possible, but, as
he thought, undervalued); for experiment of the same kind that
had convinced Hahnemann of the efficacy of the thirtieth, sanc-
tioned the higher ones; and he used to say that the kind of
theoretical arguments brought against the highest, if allowed,
would condemn even the lowest. He preferred the word "dyna-
mization" to "dilution," for the efficacy was in their dynamic.
force in relation to the vital forces, which no chemistry or
mechanic laws can estimate. The power of an infinitesimal dose
was no more, but just as inexplicable as the power of an infini-
tesimal particle of light to awaken delight in the owner of the
retina of nerves that reflects it; or, if that is diseased, to inflict
torture upon it. The question always was of the fact:—
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy;"
and these things are of daily and unquestionable experience. Dr.
Wesselhfœt constantly declared, that, in this infancy of homoeo-
pathic science, the Baconian method of experiment and collec-
tion of phenomena must be faithfully followed for a long time
yet, before a scientific explanation could be hoped; and he had
a stern feeling of disapprobation, bordering on contempt, at the
660
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
presumptuous levity that so easily questioned the principles and
conclusions of the conscientious and faithful founder of the
school, who did not open his lips until he had worked twenty
years.
It would not being doing justice to our friend's solemn con-
victions not to say this, however, severely it may cut in some
quarters.
The character of Dr. Wesselhoft has been, perhaps, more
forcibly set forth by the mere narrative of his life, than it can be
by disquisition. Love of truth and beauty; a conscience of the
duty of entire and manifold culture; industry; fidelity to every
opportunity of gaining new light; a manly and generous
sympathy with all social and national development towards
freedom; delicacy and sweetness in all family relations, and to
all friends, unostentatious hospitality that was cosmopolitan;
personal habits of self denial and disinterestedness that seemed
hardly to have a limit; the modest charm of unconsciousness
which classed him with-
"Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,
Who do [God's] will, and know it not;'
kindness, that, though it was habitual and constant as the sun,
had a morning freshness about its every manifestation; and, with
all this, a simplicity, directness, and honesty in speech, that
often offended the vain and conventional: such were the traits
that characterized Dr. Wesselhoeft. They enriched his life; but
some of them brought about his early death, which, however,
as Jean Paul has beautifully said, is the secret of nature for get-
ting more life.
He was not unaware, during all the last year, that he was pre-
suming on a constitution exhausted by the unremitting labor his
profession necessarily involved: and he admitted to a brother-
physician, who realized his exhausted condition more than the
sufferer did himself, that he ought to give up his practice, and
go to Europe; for nothing less insurmountable than the ocean
could divide him from his patients. But, though he was happy
in the thought that his son and nephew could take up his
practice, with steadfastness of fidelity to the strict homoeopathic
principle like his own, he was beguiled to wait a little longer,
and a little longer, to attend to some patients that did not like
to be given up. Thus he ran on, in the spirit of self sacrifice,
OF HOMEOPATHY.
661
till the silver string was suddenly loosed, the golden bowl
broken, and he fell.
A few weeks in the country, which it is pleasant to remember
how he enjoyed, hardly brought to himself the conviction that
he was going; for he rallied in the mountain air which he
sought. But a relapse, caused by an accidental cold, brought him
back to the city; and he sent to Philadelphia for his friend, Dr.
Hering, refusing to see all others, that he might have strength
to talk with him.
About twelve hours before he could expect him to arrive,
probably a sudden conviction of his impending departure struck
his mind. He was sitting by his wife, with her hand in his;
when suddenly he brought his other hand upon it, pressed it
tenderly several times, and said, "Will you go with me?" rose
up, made two or three firm steps towards the bed, and fell upon
his face. On being lifted up, they saw that he was "beyond
and above."
When the tidings spread through the city that he was gone,
the expression of sorrow and sympathy with the bereaved was
very great. It was a touching thing to see how much the re-
spect and love felt for him was expressed in rare and beautiful
flowers. A profusion of these smiles of nature, woven into ex-
quisite garlands and wreaths and crowns, came from his friends
and patients, far and near, whose greenhouses and house-plant she
had never failed to dwell upon with delight when he visited them.
On the day of his funeral, these tributes of affection were hung
about his coffin; and the Rev. Theodore Parker-a friend, and
in part a patient-stood at the head of it, and made a tributary
discourse to his memory, which was responded to by the tears of
a large company that encircled the weeping family. Dr. Douai
followed with an impassioned address to the Germans in their
own language; and then Mr. Parker, in a touching prayer,
thanked God for the life that had been so noble and beneficent,
and implored consolation for the misfortune such a death must
ever be to the surviving. The company also went to Forest
Hill; and there, under a tree, in the glow of sunset, the coffin
was again opened, that every friend might take a last look at
the beloved features; and, the flowers being again hung round it,
a strain of exquisite vocal music, from a choir of German friends
who where hidden in the trees that grew over the tomb, rose and
C
662
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
fell, and rose and fell, for ten minutes. It seemed like the song
of angels who were conveying the spirit to its heavenly home.
Dr. Wesselhoft, born into the Lutheran communion, sympa-
thized with the New Church, initiated by Swedenborg, more
than with any other; though he did not belong to any organized
society of it, and doubted whether Swedenborg himself intended
his disciples should form any church more visible than the
communion of faith and charity to which all the churches of
Christendom introduce sincere and loving souls.
Dr. Wesselhoft died at Boston, September 1, 1858. (Memorial
to William Wesselhoft. By Elizabeth P. Peabody, Boston, 1859.
N. Am. Jour. Hom., vol. 7, p. 400.
Trans. Am. Inst. Hom,
1859. Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 1, p. 96. World's Conv., vol. 2, p.
709.
Trans. Mass. Hom. Soc., vol. 1, p. 36.)
WIDNMANN, FRANZ SERAPH AMAND. Was born
at Marktoffinigen on March 19, 1765. After completing his
school education at Augsburg, he went to study theology in
Dillingen; but changing his mind, he removed to Ingolstadt,
where he devoted himself to medicine, and graduated at Wurz-
burg in 1792. He supported himself while a student by teach-
ing. After completing his medical education he settled as a
physician in Wallerstein, and in 1798 was appointed court phy-
sician of Eichstadt, and married the widow of his predecessor.
He was subsequently appointed body-physician of the prince
bishop, and then medical counselor. In 1817 Eichstadt was
given to the Duke of Leuchtenberg, whereupon Widnmann was
appointed body-physician to the Duke, who, however, died in
1824. Thereafter the subject of this notice settled in Munich,
where he practiced uninterruptedly until a few weeks before his
death, which happened on the 28th of January, 1848, occasioned
by pneumonia senilis. He was much attached to fine arts,
painting, music and statuary. His attention was called to
Homœopathy when physician to the Duke of Leuchtenberg, by
observing a scarlet rash appear on his son after a large dose of
Belladonna. From this time forward he practiced it exclusively,
and with the greatest zeal and success on the 31st of March,
1842, he celebrated the jubilee of his doctorship when he re-
ceived the honorary degree of a jubilee doctor. His writings
are distributed throughout Hufeland's journal, the Hygea, etc.
Rapou says: Councillor Widnmann is one of the eldest of the
OF HOMŒOPATHY.
663
German homœopaths; he did not practice much in Munich, but
in the provinces, in his capacity as physikus or physician to the
canton. He is a man of high spirit, firm and severe, who im-
posed on his colleagues respect for his personality, and who has
not ceased, spite of his title of homoeopathist, to continue the
duties that the law of the country only grants to the most
honorable and distinguished physicians. Widnmann is the first
disciple of Hahnemann who wrote in Hufeland's Journal, and
who sought to break down the polemical wall which self love
and passion had built between the rival medical schools. Widn-
mann is to-day chilled with age (1842), and practices but little.
I visited him many times, but received little useful intelligence
from his conversation. He seems to have become indifferent to
the interests of our school since the polemical breezes he had
raised about the dispensing of remedies, but spoke much of his
son, who is a pharmacist.
Widnmann's name is in the Zeitung list, and also on the list
of contributors to the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. (Brit. Jour.
Hom., vol. 8, p. 271. Rapou, vol. 2, p. 349. Kleinert, 110.
Atkin's Hom. Directory, 1855, p. 214 )
WILHELMI. The name is on the Zeitung list of 1832, at
which time he was practicing Homoeopathy at Arnstadt, Saxony.
Quin also locates him at this place two years later.
WILHELMI. The name is on Quin's list of 1834; he was
then practicing Homoeopathy in Rinteln, in Hesse Cassel.
WILSEY, FERDINAND LITTLE. Ferdinand Little Wil-
sey, M. D. (son of Andrew Tailor), was born at 57 Reade street,
New York, June 23d, 1797, and died of consumption, at Bergen,
N. J., May 11th, 1860, aged 62 years, 10 months, and 18 days.
Dr. Smith thus mentions him in the American Hom. Review:
Dr. Wilsey was born in New York, June 23, 1797, and was for
many years engaged in mercantile pursuits. About the year
1825 Dr. Hans Burch Gram arrived in this country from Sweden,
and being a Free Mason became acquainted with Mr. Wilsey,
then a Master of a lodge, who received him kindly and enter-
tained him at his house. As our readers are aware, Dr. Gram
was the first to introduce Homoeopathy into this country, and
Doctor (then Mr.) Wilsey, being troubled with dyspepsia, was
664
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
induced to place himself in his friend's care, and thus became
the first patient who was treated homoeopathically in this coun-
try. The success of the treatment was such that he desired his
old-school physician, Dr. John F. Gray, to investigate the new
practice, which after a while he did. Not content with merely
being cured himself, Mr. Wilsey applied himself assiduously to
disseminate the facts of Homœopathy, and inducing his friends
who required medical treatment to place themselves under the
care of Dr. Gram.
Mr. Wilsey, who had long had a taste for the healing art, soon
began to study the homoeopathic system under Dr. Gram's
direction. At the same time he attended the lectures of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was soon qualified to
practice, and received the degree of M. D. He however prac-
ticed his profession only in private, and gratuitously among his
friends. The revulsion of 1837 caused him to relinquish his
mercantile pursuits, and being somewhat reduced in his fortune
his friends procured for him a desirable situation in the Custom-
house, which he accepted, and still continued his private medi-
cal practice. About the year 1845 or 1846 Dr. Wilsey joined a
company for mining copper in Cuba, and sailed for that island
to superintend the mining operations. The enterprise proved
disastrous, Dr. Wilsey's health failed, and in less than a year
he returned to New York and commenced for the first time the
public practice of medicine. He soon became very successful
and his services were widely sought. By the rewards of his
diligent professional labors he retrieved his early fortunes, and
became possessed of very considerable wealth, which he used for
many good and benevolent purposes. Some three or four years
ago (about 1856) he underwent a severe and protracted illness,
brought on, it is thought, by his excessive professional labors,
operating upon a constitution always delicate. Since then his
"friends have seen with regret that his health was failing. Often
he had been confined to his house and his bed; but as soon as
sufficient strength returned he resumed his activity. About two
years ago, however, he relinquished the most burdensome part
of his labors, and with them his house in New York, to his suc-
cessor, Dr. Forbes, and removed his family to Bergen, N J.
Dr. Folger says that Dr. Wilsey may be considered, not only as
the first convert to the doctrines of homoeopathia in the United
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
665
States, but also as the first American who made any preten-
sions to the practice of the same. As early as 1828 he was oc-
cupied with many patients. He was devotedly attached to Gram,
and in all his adversities and changes was found by his side.
He was a companion to him in his protracted illness, and was
the last at his final resting place. He graduated in 1844.
(Trans. Am. Inst. Hom., 1860, 1870. World's Conv., vol. 2, p.
444. N. E. Med. Gaz., Feb., 1871. Am. Hom. Rev., vol. 2, p.
432.)
WILSON, ABRAHAM DURYEA.
Was born in Columbia
College, New York City, September 20, 1801. His father, Peter
Wilson, was professor of Languages and Greek and Roman
Antiquities. He received his education in this College, and
graduated in 1818, when but 17 years of age, but did not receive
his diploma until he was of legal age, in 1822. After his gradua-
tion he at once commenced the study of medicine under Drs.
Francis and Hosack, receiving the degree of M. D. from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, in 1821. He at once settled
to practice, taking up residence in Walker St. In early man-
hood he joined the Masonic order. In 1824 he married Miss
Eliza Holmes.
It was previous to 1829 that Wilson was introduced by his
friend Dr. Gray to Dr. Gram. Incredulous at first, and like
nearly all his brethren of the old school, deeming the new doc-
trine nothing short of humbug, he resolved to follow in his old
course; but the convincing arguments of his new acquaintance,
together with the extraordinary and difficult cures which he
witnessed, induced him to make further experiments with the
new medical system. These tests resulted in his becoming a
convert to the system of Hahnemann, and in 1829 he publicly
adopted the homoeopathic method in the treatment of his patients,
continuing steadfastly in the same path till the day of his death.
Dr. Gray in his address on the life of Dr. Wilson says of this
period: Wilson came into our circle with all his stores of sound
culture, and with all his indomitable courage in defence of the
right and the true, or of whatsoever he so deemed; an accession of
manly power, of moral force, which was most cheerfully wel-
comed by us at that time, and evermore thereafter cherished
and venerated by us and by all who came after us.
666
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
"I have said that the avowal of his change of practice ensued
upon a very mature and thorough examination of the questions.
involved in that change, and I may add that this was his method
in all other philosophical and administrative problems. His
powers of analysis were never embarrassed by the perturbations
of his emotional nature. Though generous even to a decided
fault on some occasions, and full of sympathy at all times and in
every fibre of his being, yet could he at all times set his reason
to work in the precision and cool steadiness of mathematical
logic, and so it was his wont to apply his happily dimant
rational power to the largest quations of faith and of practice in
ethics and theosophy as well as in ours of medicine. His char-
acteristic lay in this rare peculiarity of constitution, one which
belonged to the old-time philosophers, that he could apply his
consciously rational test-processess over all the lines sketched
by his intuitions; and his merit as a man consisted in this ever
rare quality, that he openly avowed and sustained whatsoever he
found to be true by this his double process of investigation-
prolepsis and demonstration.
"Wilson took this great step-Homœopathy-with a delibera-
tion and courage consonant with his training in letters and
science and with his constitution as a man. He was no adven-
turer in this community, with nothing to lose by the change
and perhaps a gain to make by heralding a novelty in medicine.
Nor was he, by any view of his constitution, an eager innovator,
a reformer of popular mistakes, but rather from his harmonic
tendencies (he loved music) and his cordial social support with
all the good-meaning people of his place and times he was a
conservative; he was indulgent to harmless errors and indisposed
to violent uprootings. Nevertheless, he went with his convic-
tions of truth whensoever these were fully ripe in his soul; like
the great apostle to the Gentiles, he consulted not with flesh
and blood when beneficent truth called for volunteers in her
divine conflicts. Bitter were the pangs and sore the costs of
this bold change for the accomplished and successful young
Wilson. In less than two years after his adoption of the new
method, that is to say in 1831, when the birth of the last of his
children had rendered the demands of family support strongest
upon him, his change had already deprived him of all his family
practice save one. Of that goodly broad basis founded by his
OF HOMEOPATHY.
667
familiar associates among the Masons in the Dutch church, of
which he was a cherished member, and from among his family
adherents, including those of his brother, the Counselor, only
one stood by him, Mr. Thomas Dugan, sexton of St. George's,
who happened to have been a mutual friend of Wilson and
myself.
Dr. Wilson died of pulmonary apoplexy at No. 17 West
Eleventh St., New York, on January 20, 1864, aged 63 years.
(World's Conv., vol. 2, p. 447. N. E. Med. Gaz., March, 1871.
Am. Inst. Trans., 1870. Trans. N. Y. State Hom Soc., 1863-
Dr. Gray's Address on Wilson; also as a pamphlet. Am. Hom.
Review, vol. 4, p. 384. Smith's MSS.)
WINCKLER. The name is on the list of contributors to the
Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829. It is also on the Zeitung and
Quin lists. He was practicing Homoeopathy in Altenburg,
Hungary.
WOHLLEBEN, HEINRICH JOH. Was a contributor to
the Hahnemann Jubilee of 1829, at which time he was a surgeon
at Volkenrode in Gotha. His name is on the Zeitung and Quin
lists.
WOLFF, VON. Von Wolff was a contributor to Hahne-
mann's Jubilee of 1829; he was then in Warsaw. His name also
appears on the Zeitung and Quin lists. The editor of the Klinik
writes:
Darmstadt.—The newspaper published here, in its issue of
Sept. 4, contains the following concerning the lately deceased
Royal Counselor Wolff: Yesterday (the 3d of Sept.) at half-
past 7 P. M., there died at Darmstadt, after a long and severe ill
ness, in his 64th year, the pensioned Grand Ducal Royal Coun-
selor Wolff, a man of honor and uprightness in the fullest sense
of the word, as he fully proved in his very active life, spent
partly in the military and partly in the civil service. A brave,
resolute and faithful soldier, a well-educated and efficient officer,
highly esteemed by his comrades and by his superiors, he left
the military career after the great war, many honorable wounds.
especially from the Spanish and French campaigns, testifying to
his doughty qualities. He now devoted himself with a charac-
teristic equal zeal and love to the civil service of the State. Of
this he gave manifold proof in his position as fiscal officer in
668
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
self.
various districts of the country, and later as administrator of the
Hospital of the Lunatic Asylum and the Infirmary at Hofheim,
as well as by his many years' activity as member of the Second
House of the provincial diet. Whoever came into touch with
him recognized his restless zeal for the advancement of every-
thing useful to the commonwealth, his successful activity for the
good and happiness of humanity, and his beneficence, and will
acknowledge that he ever thought more of others than of him-
Whatever Wolff undertook, he would carry on with his
whole soul and with a fiery zeal. This was also shown by his
activity in the domain of Homeopathy, in which he was con-
sidered an authority, as may be seen from his many writings on
this subject. With one word, he was a man in the true sense of
the word, and bis numerous friends will hear the tidings of his
decease with heartfelt sorrow. All was done that the healing
art could do to prolong his life, which was endangered by an
organic heart trouble. His illness began already in February,
and he only succumbed after seven months. May the ashes of
the good man find their rest. We ourselves last saw him in
Frankfurt, A. M., at the meeting of the Central Union and we can
testify to his earnest zeal in the good cause.
WOLF, PAUL. In the Prager Med. Monatschrift for Feb-
ruary, 1857, notice is given that Dr. Paul Wolf, of Dresden, died
on January 2, 1857, in his 62d year.
The British Journal contains the following: Beyond the circle
of the friends and patients of Dr. Paul Wolf, of Dresden, his
death will be felt by many who have enjoyed the pleasure of his
personal acquaintance, or to whom he was known by reputation
as one of the earliest champions of Homœopathy.
The subject of this notice was born in Dresden on the 24th of
February, 1795. He received the first elements of education at
the Israelite school of Seesen, and afterwards at the school of St.
Thomas, in Leipzic. His first inclination was to study philoso-
phy, but a relation persuaded him to adopt medicine as his pro-
fession. So he entered the University of Leipzic as a medical
student in 1812. During the war in 1813, he came to Dresden
and acted as assistant surgeon in the typhushospital attached to
the goal, where he continued until attacked by the disease. He
afterwards completed his studies at Prague and thence went to
Jena, where he took his degree in 1817. He passed the Gov-
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
669
ernment examination in Dresden in the following year, not with-
out much opposition on the part of the authorities, in conse-
quence of his being a Hebrew. He was much complimented
upon his inaugural essay on "Croup," and the purity of his
Latin. He settled in Dresden, but for a long time he was unable
to live by his practice, but was supported by his relatives. In
1822 he married, and thereafter his practice gradually in-
creased. In 1824, when on a visit to Prague, Professor Bischof
drew his attention to Homœopathy, and advised him to study it,
which Wolf did under the guidance of Drs. Marenzeller and von
Lichtenfels. His first experiments with the new method having
been crowned with success, his confidence increased in it, and in
1826 he devoted himself entirely to its practice. He found Dr.
Trinks already practicing Homoeopathy in Dresden, and a series
of persecutions soon began to be directed against these two
apostles of the new system. Fines, actions at law, accusations.
of poisoning, the hatred of colleagues, the unbelief or mockery
of the public, caricatures-in short, all the armory of oppression
was employed to put them down. Without success, however,
for the fame of our hero went on increasing and his practice ex-
tending. He numbered several crowned heads among his pa-
tients. He was created Hofrath of Altenburg in 1836, and a
few years later he was decorated with the order of Henry the
Lion of Brunswick. He did not do much in the literary line,
partly on account of his many professional engagements, and
partly on account of his dislike of publicity. One article of his,
however, is very well known-his "Eighteen Theses," which
have been more than once alluded to in this journal. He was
president of the last meeting of the German Central Homœo-
pathic Society, in August, 1856, when those who had not seen
him for some time were struck by his altered and aged look.
Some years previously he had suffered much from an ulceration
of the stomach, which had healed up, but was succeeded by fits
of the gout, and two years ago he first perceived the signs of
diabetes mellitus. This disease went on increasing and reduced
his strength greatly. His breathing became affected and his
sight impaired. Notwithstanding his sufferings, he continued
to pursue his practice, and refused to take proper care of his
health. He knew his disease was mortal, but he had a great
dread of a long illness, and so continued to work as long as pos-
670
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
sible. On the 30th of December he was seized with bronchial
catarrh and four days afterwards he was dead. He left a widow
and six children. His funeral showed the general esteem in
which he was held. A numerous concourse of his friends and
admirers followed his body to the Jewish burial ground. The
procession included the carriages of many of the most eminent
inhabitants of Dresden-among others, that of the Countess of
Hohenau (wife of Prince Albert of Prussia) and those of the
English and French Ambassadors. Funeral orations were deliv-
ered at the grave by the Chief Rabbi Landau and by his friend,
Dr. Trinks.
Dr. Wolf's colleagues bear cordial testimony to his ability as
a physician, his strict professional behavior, and the confidence.
he inspired in his patients. His experience had been great, and
he had profited greatly by it. He possessed a mass of informa-
tion regarding the actions of medicines, such as few among us
can boast of. His practical tact and almost instinctive selection
of the appropriate medicine made him a most successful practi-
tioner His courtesy and kindness to younger practitioners, his
geniality and friendliness to his contemporaries, made him a
great favorite with all his colleagues. He left behind him a
sketch of a work on general therapeutics, and some fragments of
practical papers.
The Theses mentioned above were written to carefully define
the laws of Homœopathy and were accepted as guides by the
Central Society. They were first published in the Archiv, fuer
d. hom. Heilkunst, vol. 13. In them the mooted questions were
discussed.
Meyer says in the Zeitung: Another veteran and master mind
of our science has departed. On the 2d of January, 1857, at 10
P. M., there died at Dresden, Privy Counselor Dr. Paul Wolf,
Knight of the Heinrichsorden of Brunswick, after having attended
to the duties of his vocation only two days before, though he was
suffering even then. A metastasis of gout to the lungs put an
end to his indefatigable activity and unwearied exertions. He
was among the first physicians of Dresden and his fame extended
over all the countries of Europe. The many proofs of princely
favor shown to him demonstrate, at the same time, how well he
succeeded in procuring access even into those high circles for our
beloved Homoeopathy. A man of deep knowledge, of familiar
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
671
acquaintance with our materia medica, one of the most penetrating
observers at the sick bed, a loving colleague-he sank into the
grave at the age of 62 years. Rest, our dear friend, from your
troubled earthly pilgrimage. May you find in those heavenly
spheres that rest which you would not allow to yourself here
below.
Paul Wolf was born in Dresden on the 24th of February, 1795.
Even as a boy he showed an active mind and a firm will. This
was the especial cause why his mother yielded to his eager in-
clination to study medicine and allowed him to visit the Thomas-
Schule in Leipzig. He must have been a very diligent pupil,
for when only 16 years old he entered the University of Leipzig,
where he remained till 1814, when he went to study three years
at Prague. On the 23d of October, 1817, after passing a splendid
examination, he graduated at Jena. Before establishing himself
at Dresden, however, he had to undergo another examination by
the State at the Medico-chirurgical Academy. He had not to fear
this, as he had made an honest use of his studying time at the
university and he was intimately acquainted with all branches of
the medical science. As he had, however, heard that the pro-
fessors intended to give him a very rigid examination, he de-
manded, as was then the privilege of every candidate, to be exani-
ined in Latin. Now whether the professors were not altogether at
home in this idiom, or because they soon recognized the wealth
of knowledge in Wolf-in brief, the examination was shortened
and he passed with the highest honors. Though this fact made
an excellent impression on his friends and acquaintances, never-
theless his beginnings were not without their difficulties. The
prejudice of the public against allowing a novitiate in medicine
to experiment upon them, caused also Wolf to fully enjoy, in
his first years, the privilege of the young physician of waiting
for his patients. But soon his fame augmented and the number
of his patients increased, so that he could found his own hearth.
In the year 1822 he married Miss Isabella Schie, a daughter of
one of the first houses of Dresden, and from this happy marriage
issued six children. But the more his practice increased, the
less his acute and thoughtful spirit was satisfied with the routine
work of the old school. Nothing, therefore, was more natural
than that he should turn his mind to Homoeopathy, though this
was then but little known, and that he should make himself
672
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
acquainted with the fundamental principles. But his thirst for
knowledge was not satisfied with these merely theoretical studies,
but he desired to hear from the mouth of a colleague, already an
adept in the practice of Homoeopathy, the decision as to the "To
be or not to be;" he therefore turned to the late Hartmann, who
then was still living in Zschopau. But since correspondence
would have taken up too much time, and did not seem to answer
the purpose, a meeting in Freiberg was arranged, which took
place in 1824 and at which the medical practioner Trinks was
also present. Wolf had equipped himself with the four volumes
of the Materia Medica Pura, that had then appeared, and made.
these the foundation of the lively conversation of the evening.
The dawning morning surprised the doughty colleagues at their
discussion, for there were very many questions and the answers
were at that time still difficult. Hartmann told me frequently
of this happy evening; but he never failed to remark that the
genial Wolf beset him so closely with his questions, and so
hemmed him in with objections and exceptions, that he was in-
ternally glad that the approaching day admonished them to
separate. But this conversation must have been most instruc-
tive to all parties, for to his latest years Hartmann felt thankful
to these two men, that through their debate carried on with
spirit and warmth they had brought to maturity an idea which
for many years already had been slumbering in his mind, namely,
that of writing a homoeopathic therapy. From this time Wolf
publicly appeared as a homoeopath, and his good success not
only increased the circle of his adherents and admirers, but even
while a young physician he had the satisfaction to be drawn
into consultation in many severe cases of diseases by his col-
leagues. Despite of his laborious and extended practice, he
did not omit to continue his studies of homoeopathy, and it was
especially the Materia Medica Pura which occupied him night
and day. Not like so many younger Homoeopaths of our time,
who think that they have done a sufficiency by casting some
superficial and hurried glances into our Materia Medica, he on
the contrary strove with industry and perseverance to become a
master of the science, to which he remained faithful to his
death. At the same time his investigations were not blind, for
from his youth he had accustomed himself to examine and
think for himself. Several of his earlier articles demonstrate
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
673
this, but especially the 18 theses published by him in the year
1836 in the Archiv, which are valid even at this day and which
received an honoring vote of agreement from the Central Verein.
The respect and the esteem which he won from his colleagues
through these 18 theses, and by the manner of his demonstra-
tion of them, surely contributed to the fact that his fame also in
foreign countries was continually augmented. Princely per-
sonages and even crowned heads turned to him for advice and
help, and his consulting correspondence extended probably all
over Europe. Among the manifold distinctions vouchsafed to
this physician who was as successful as he was excellent, we
will only mention the bestowal of the knightly order of Heinrich
of Brunswick, granted him in 1836, and his appointment as
Privy Counselor by the Duke of Altenburg 5 years later. Thus
he won honor, not for himself alone, but far more for our Home-
opathy. The envy and malevolence which he, like other homo-
opathic physicians, had been exposed to from his allopathic col-
leagues were banished by these magic formulas: rank and title;
and even those who envied and begrudged him could not avoid
counting our dear departed friend among the first and most
eminent physicians of Dresden.
The youthly vigor with which he had hitherto borne the
fatigues and hardships of his office with ease and readiness, with-
out giving himself an hour's rest and respite, gradually dimin-
ished, but his zeal, diligence and strict conscientiousness in the
practice of his vocation remained. His body, which, on the
whole, was rather weakly, had long borne these great exertions,
and his health was only once disturbed by a chronic stomach
trouble, which quite distressed and grieved him. But in the
course of a single year, and that his last, the stamp of age was
impressed on his features, which till then had still shown vigor,
and many of those who took part in the last meeting of the
Central-Verein must have been sadly surprised by this rapid
change; for though he still presided with full dignity and per-
severance, those who were more intimate with him could not
fail to see that his bodily strength was broken, that his voice had
lost its sonorous resonance and that his mind, at other times so
vivacious, followed the transactions only with some excitation.
It might be, that if he had granted himself some weeks of rest
his weakened organism might have regained its strength. But
is it not the fate of most physicians who are true to their voca-
·
-
674
PIONEER PRACTITONERS
tion, that their activity only ceases on the bier? So also he gave
no thought to his ailments, and thought that even the last hours
of his life ought to be devoted to his patients. In spite of the
most loving urgency of his good consort, to grant himself at least
a few days' rest and nursing, he nevertheless continued his calls
to his patients to the 30th of last December (1856), in spite of
the addition of gout in his foot, and to alleviate his pains he per-
sisted in enveloping the foot in cold water compresses even while
driving in his carriage. Finally, his body, already weakened,
gave way; respiratory troubles of the most violent kind, which
forced him to sit up on the sofa, now appeared and threatened
his life. He was conscious of his danger and pronosticated
death; so he murmured to a friend of high degree, who visited
him a few hours before his decease: "C'est fini, Monsieur." He
was correct, for the most painstaking care of his son-in-law, Dr.
Elb, who was during the last two days supported by the practi-
tioners Trinks, Gerson and Hirschel in his laborious task, proved
ineffectual. On the 2d of January, 1857, after 10 P. M., our
Wolf closed his eyes, nevermore to open them here. Oedema of
the lungs had been superadded.
The impression made by his death on all who knew the de-
parted was that of a violent shock; his numerous patients had
lost in him their most faithful helper; his colleagues, a friend
ever ready with his counsel; his wife, the pride of her home;
the children, their loving, careful father; his mother, still living
at the age of 86, her best beloved son. The universal love and
esteem enjoyed by the departed, both as man and as physician,
was plainly manifested at his funeral on the 5th of January
(1857): A long train of carriages containing members of the
nobility, among them the carriages of Prince Albrecht, of Prussia;
the High Burggrave, of Chotek; the French ambassador, the
chief burgomaster, aldermen and councilmen, colleagues of both
the old and the new school, and finally the great number of his
grateful patients and friends accompanied the earthly remains of
him who had departed, all too early, to his eternal resting place.
Arrived here, the Medical Counselor Trinks gave a brief outline
of the life of the departed, and in manly enthusiasm and with
the warmth of a colleagne emphasized the heavy loss suffered
by science and by ailing humanity through the departure of the
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
675
glorified one. A last farewell, and the coffin sank down into the
gloomy tomb.
The flowers and palms that followed thy dead body will wither
and fade, but the palms won by thy life will continue to bloom
and continue for a long, long time. Thus mayst thou slumber
sweetly and enjoy eternal peace.
MEYER
(Prager Monatsch., vol. 5, p. 32. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 15, þ.
323. Allg. hom. Zeit., vol. 53, pp. 137, 158. World's Conv., vol.
2, pp. 29, 35. Kleinert. Rapou, vol. 2, pp. 98 to 103.)
WOLF, C. W. In the list of contributors to the Hahne-
mann Jubilee of 1829 appears the name, C. W. Wolf, district
physician at Calau in the Niederlausitz. The name is also on
the Zeitung list of 1832 and on that of Quin of 1834. The
Zeitung tells us that on May 26, 1866, there died at Berlin the
veteran homoeopathist Dr. C. W. Wolf. (Allg. hom. Zeit., vol.
72, p. 184. Zeit. f. hom. Klinik, vol. 3, p. 172.)
WRATZKY. Was a Russian nobleman, who early became
interested in Homoeopathy and about 1831 translated Hahne-
mann's "Organon" into the Russian.
Peschier thus writes of him while visiting Hahneman in 1832:
"One other night I had for messmate M. the Russian Counselor
Wratzky, who had translated the Organon' into Russian, and
who, after a sojourn of some months in Germany, from whence
he was carrying a complete pharmacy, proposed to practice
Homœopathy at home, upon his countrymen and neighbors.
Without doubt he has rendered them great service." (World's
Hom. Conv., vol. 2, p. 259. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 38, p. 311.)
WRECHA. Was practicing Homoeopathy in Vienna in
1824. He was a pupil of Prof. Hildenbrand, under whom he
for a long tinie studied syphilis, uniting the course in medidine.
with the specialty of surgery, which gave him a well merited
reputation. A lecture on the "Organon," which by chance fell
into his hands in 1824, changed the direction of his labors. The
first edition of the "Materia Medica Pura" had been exhausted
and the second had not yet appeared, and he copied the same
from a copy that he borrowed. His first attempt to test prac-
tically the practice of Homoeopathy was in a case of strangu-
lated, hernia to which all the principal surgeons in Vienna were
676
PIONEER PRACTITIONERS
called in consultation. It was an inguinal hernia that had
existed for twelve years in a man of sixty years. Some days
before, after an exertion, this hernia had become strangulated.
There was vomiting of focal matters and inflammatory disten-
sion of the abdomen. The great feebleness of the patient and
the diagnosis foretold adherance of the intestinal sac to its
envelopes, and forbade an operation. The case was declared
desperate. It was lawful for Wrecha to employ the method
which he was studying at the time, and his conferrees made
little opposition. Following the indications of the "Materia
Medica," he gave a drop of a high dilution of Nux vomica
Following the remedy the abdominal pains became more sharp
but less in duration; soon the tumor partly disappeared leaving
a nucleus of fibrinous consistency.
Before he practiced Homoeopathy Wrecha had acted as
surgeon to the poorer classes of the inner city. For this, which
was both medical and surgical, he adopted in the public service.
the new method, to the detriment of the druggists, who took
their complaints to the authorities of the dispensary. Happily
our colleague had control of the officers of the laity to whom
the question of cost was of great importance. It was seen that
while the allopathic pharmacy treatment amounted in the year
to many thousands of florins of sil er, the expense under
homœopathic treatment was very slight, while the record of
cures was satisfactory. The directors were satisfied of the ad-
vantage of guarding Dr. Wrecha and his methods. Wrecha for
a long time was chief physician to the Dispensary General in
Vienna. He was especially interested in surgery and sought to
extend the sphere of action of Homoeopathy to a number of
organic alterations thought to be incurable by internal medicine
and given over to the operatior. He was often` able to succeed,
but where he could not he operated.
Wrecha made for his medical convictions great sacrifices for,
which he is to be honored. He adopted with zeal a method
which was at that time in Vienna without partisans and an
object of scorn. He lost two thirds of his good clientage and
the friendship of the Proto-medicus Stifft, who had many honors
in his gift. His practice proved the importance of the physician
dispensing his own remedies. To conform to the established
law he prescribed as of old, and sent to a pharmacist of his
OF HOMOEOPATHY.
677
acquaintance, who was a very conscientious man and who pre-
pared his prescription in a place set apart. This parmacist was
called into the army, and with his successor's preparation the
homoeopathic remedies lost their effect. Wrecha lost a great
army of his new clients and was obliged to himself attend to the
preparation of his remedies notwithstanding the danger of pros-
ecution. Wrecha was an exact Hahnemannian and a declared
partisan of the high dilutions. His name appears in the Zeitung
list of 1832. (World's Conv., vol. 2, p, 204. Rapou, vol. 1, p.
242, etc. Kleinert, 165.)
ZEISIG. According to the list of the Zeitung, published in
1832, Zeisig was at that time practicing Homœopathy in Eiben-
stock, Saxony. Quin also locates him at the same place in 1834.
Eibenstock, November 22, 1837. To-day died our Dr. Zeisig.
He has been of great use as a homoeopathic physician. Only a
few months ago he restored a lady in Schueeberg, who was lying
in the throes of death and had been given up by three physicians.
He succumbed to the typhoid fever, that was prevailing here,
and by which he was infected in the poorhouse, where there
were fourteen patients. It is very much desired that a physician
of the homœopathic school should move here.-F. (All. hom.
Zeit., vol. 12, p. 160.)
ZIMMERMAN. Was an early practitioner of Homoeopathy
in St. Petersburg, Russia. The name is on the Zeitung list of
1832 and that of Quin of 1834.
Hahnemann, in a letter dated July, 1831, says: Herewith I
communicate to you, in addition, the following for publication:
St. Petersburg.—A very zealous Homœopath, Dr. Zimmerman,
formerly having a position in the hospital at Oranienbaum, who
is now at Zarskoe Selo (three miles from Petersburg), physician
to a newly established institute for the care of soldiers' boys, 400
in number, accepted this position only on condition that he be
allowed to treat the patients homoeopathically.
They have there even children with nurses, and also boys up
to ten years of age. The institute is under the charge of the
Empress, who is interested in it. This homoeopathic treatment
was not only granted by the authorities, but a sum of money for
procuring a homoeopathic pharmacy was also granted him.
ZINKHAU. Was practicing Homœopathy in 1834 in Schluch-
tern, in Hesse-Cassel, according to Dr. Quin.
*
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