UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL FROM THE WRITINGS OF CONSTANTINE HERING



Hering believed, with Jean Paul Richter, that all things that happen, happen twice, the duplicature of events. There are laws that govern history as well as laws that govern space, planetary movements.

There are four kinds of motion; 1. Up and down. 2. From side to side. 3. Forward and backward, the motion of the rocking chair, and the swing.

The first if the motion of health, liked by babies. The baby jumper is an excellent invention for the nursery.

The second is not healthy, but not quite as bad as the third, which is most detrimental to women and children, causing all manner of diseases with them. No person can stand a rocking chair in the long run.

4. A fourth motion, that of swinging around in a circle, is the worst of all motions.

Hering believes (with Swedenborg) that the nerves contain a gaseous substance which circulates from the periphery to the centre through the sensory nerves, and from the centre to the periphery through the motor nerves. In sleep this current is reversed.

Medicines placed upon the tongue are there changed to a nerve- gas, which is transmitted to diseased parts.

This would explain the lightning-like cures as mentioned by P.P. Wells and observed by others. Hering wonders if the metals contained in a battery are dissolved, disintegrated and thus pass on through the wires. He remarked, “Now we have only the effects from copper and zinc. Other metals might come into use”.

The Rev. John Helfrich, a lay practitioner, associated with the Allentown Academy, once contributed a case to the Correspondence, a cure with Ipecacuanha in which the patient had no symptoms of this particular remedy. Why did he prescribe the Ipecac? Because a number of other patients with the same sickness, had gotten well under it. He had stumbled upon the law of treatment the genus epidemicus.

In cities we have not the same opportunity to observe this as in the country.

If a wrong is done, either from malice or from ignorance, Nemesis is sure to follow. This would appear to be a law of nature. I hold to the belief that history repeats itself and that everything happens in doubles. For example, this morning I had a patient who had a strange symptom not be found in our materia medica. This symptom is: He is constantly thinking of his sickness; cannot get it out of his mind!.

I was asked the other day whether it was not very provoking, as well as discouraging, to meet with ungrateful patients.

Ingratitude we meet with every day, said I. Our Lord and Master was covered with it. Surely God has more cause to complain of ingratitude than have I.

Kepler, the great German astronomist, was a Protestant. He with his family and friends had to leave their possession in Austria on account of religious persecution. He was followed by riders, sent out by the king, who asked him to return. Kepler said: “If I go back my friends will have to return with me!”.

Kepler was once asked how he could wait so long and so patiently for this theories to be accepted and replied, “The Lord has waited a long time for people to understand the harmony of His creation! Why should I be impatient?”.

It would seem to be scarcely sufficient to close these reminiscences of Dr. Hering without saying something about the South American Lachesis. I will let that sainted homoeopath and skillful practitioner of other days, Dr. C.W. Boyce of Auburn, New York, do the speaking. Dr. Boyce was an intimate friend of Hering, who made several long visits to Philadelphia, where the two spent days in each others society.

I quote from an Appreciation of Hering by Boyce, read at the Hering Memorial meeting in 1880, in which are contained these remarks. Dr. Hering had named Boyce “the man who saved Lachesis”. This was after the bombastic and superficial Hempel had declared the remedy “inert, in face, no remedy at all”!.

Boyce says:

Often, as I came to Dr. Herings house he would exclaim, “Here comes the man who saved Lachesis!” He loved to tell me about the capture of the snake, and how he took the poison, and how he had proved it. We were to go to the Academy of Natural Science together and see the original snake.

The name of Dr. Hering is so closely associated with Lachesis, in my mind, that when one is mentioned the other is almost sure to come up with it and to a great extent, with me, homoeopathy depends upon Lachesis for its glory.

I had a case of typhoid fever which had continued unchecked for twenty-one days. At this time there seemed no chance for the patient to recover. Hope had abandoned, when, during the night following the twenty-first day, Lachesis was given every two hours. Next morning, there was a complete change for the better. The tongue was moist, the delirium greatly lessened. From this time on convalescence progressed until health was restored.

This case was never forgotten, but in my daily rounds it was a long time before I saw another such result. It came, however, in a case of gangrene. A woman discovered a small black spot on the calf of her leg, which gave her a great deal of uneasiness, and it rapidly increased in size. When I saw her, she was in bed, and the spot measured three inches in diameter; it was rapidly increasing in size, and she grew sicker and sicker. Lachesis was given and in a few hours the progress of the disease was checked. In a few days the entire piece of flesh which was affected fell out, leaving a hole reaching to the sheath of the muscles; but this healed kindly in a short time.

Again followed a time of professional drudgery, without striking results. When again I was startled. A woman, who was nursing a child, was aroused at midnight by the cry of fire. She had only time to grasp her child and rush out of the house in her night- clothes. It was winter-time, and she went into snow to her knees. She stool about in this undress until the house was consumed before seeking shelter. The result was that she did not get out of bed until the following summer, and then only by the help of Lachesis, which, in nine days, not only took her out of bed, but set her to doing her housework.

In about another month another great calamity seemed to be impeding. My eldest daughter was taken with diphtheria. It went on to the croupy stage. This was at a time when I had never seen a case recover in which the larynx had become involved. The disease had first shown itself on November 1st. You all know how this disease progresses, and how anxious we all are when we have such cases to treat.

This one progressed until the eleventh day, slowly but surely getting worse, when I wrote to Dr. Hering, giving minutely the symptoms and condition, saying that on the thirteenth day, when I knew he would have the letter, I would telegraph the symptoms, if the patient were still alive. This I did, and soon had the reply: “Give Lachesis”.

In December, 1863, another claim came to me in my immediate family. To give a correct account of this case I must copy it as reported at the time. “A child of twenty-one months, with light hair, blue eyes and light complexion, took cold on Christmas day. During the night of the 26th there was fever and rapid respiration. At 11 a.m. on the 27th, the child had spasm lasting fifteen minutes. From this time until January 8th there was continued fever, greatly increased at night, with a pulse of 150.

The respirations per minute were seventy on actual count, and at no time less. Generally there was a red spot on one cheek, which frequently changed sides. When one cheek was red the other generally was pale. All of this time the left lung was impervious to air. Auscultation revealed slight bronchial respiration but no vesicular murmur. The right lung was not implicated; there was constant cough, yet much increased at night.

The case had gradually, but surely, got worse, up to January 8th, when the right lung began to be affected. On this day the child became uneasy and restless, throwing itself about in all directions and positions in its effort to get breath.

The face grew dark, there was constant spasmodic cough with laboured breathing, the little thing in its agony striking at the mother for control. When it fell asleep for a few seconds at a time the throat became so dry that a condition resembling croup came on, and all the sufferings were increased. This fearful condition was rapidly hurrying the little sufferer to its grave. All the remedies prominent in similar conditions had been given, including Lachesis 200, without result.

At this juncture Lachesis 12 (three pellets) was given, dry, on the tongue; immediately (the pellets had not entirely dissolved on the tongue) the cough stopped and the breathing was relieved, for four hours. At the end of this time the cough gradually returned with all of the sufferings (in a diminished degree) when another dose of Lachesis 12 produced the same decided relief, this time lasting for sixteen hours. Four doses in twelve hours so changed the condition that the child slept nearly all of the night, and air passed freely again to all parts of the previously obstructed lung.

Calvin B Knerr