I later went to his house, rang his door bell, was shown into his office and when I told him my purpose of seeing him he at once extended his hand and gave mine a hearty shake and said: sit down. After he had waited upon two or three patients he was ready to hear my story which I related I think it was more than an hour before I was ready to leave him. He gave me his opinion as to the nature of the case and what I might expect and what in his judgment was the proper remedy and I wondered that the man without the least idea of receiving any remuneration should take so much time and trouble to give to me an utter stranger the knowledge I desired: and when I rose to say good-bye and express my thanks he again extended his hand and shaking mine with a hearty grip he said in that same tone, which after that became very familiar to me, well, come again And I did go again and again never saw Dr. Hering in my life did not learn something to profit me and those who came within the influence of my professional life.
ST. LOUIS MEMORIAL MEETING At a St. Louis Memorial Service held October 10th 1880, Dr. Charles Gundelach read a biographical sketch from which the following extracts are a part.
Dr. Hering’s life work was Materia Medica. He made provings of the most of our remedies in present use, introduced many new and valuable drugs and published his remedies and experiences in different works here and abroad and was during all his years of practice a very diligent contributor to the periodical medical literature in America as well as in Germany. Of his publications should be mentioned his Domestic physician, first published in 1835. The work passed through seven editions in America, two in England, thirteen in Germany and had been translated into the French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Hungarian, Russian and Swedish Languages.
The Effects of snake poison, 1837 Suggestions for the proving of Drugs. 1853 American Drug provings, 1853- 1857 Translation of Gross Comparative Materia Medica. 1866. Analytical Therapeutics, vol. I 1875. Condensed Materia Medica two editions, 1877 – 1879 Guiding symptoms a ten volume work, the third of which he began just prior to his death was completed by his Literary Executors, Doctors Raue, Knerr and Mohr, now out of print.
In person, Dr. Hering had an imposing and dignified appearance. He was tall and wore spectacles, beard full and hair long and curling. Dr. Hering was married three times. First in South America, where the mother of his first child, a son now living in Paramaribo, died after giving birth.
After returning to Philadelphia from Allentown, he married a girl of German parentage with whom he had three children, only one surviving; a daughter, married and living in Boston. After his second wife had died, during a visit to Germany in 1845, he married Therese, the daughter of Dr. Buchheim, a celebrated allopathic physician by whom he had eight children, six of whom and their mother, survive him.
Dr. Hering enjoyed good health until about ten years ago, when at the ripe age of seventy he occasionally suffered from attacks of asthma. Even to the last day of his life he was in comparative good health, having attended to his patients during the day, the last one just before retiring. Later in the evening in his study while engaged in literary work, (on his Guiding symptoms) he was suddenly attacked with paralysis of the heart and died within twenty minutes, with none of his family present but his devoted wife and Mrs. Mertens, a friend of the family; this was on Friday evening, July 23rd, 1880, he being in the eighty-first year of his age. Dr. W.A. Edmonds followed with these remarks:
In surveying a great and noble life, like that of Dr. Hering, we very naturally incline to be inquisitive and as to the peculiar point, or quality of character which may have resulted in so much usefulness and prominence.
Undoubtedly the great beacon light of his lifework and the charm of his character, was his enthusiasm; the enthusiasm of conviction as to the theoretical and practical truth of homoeopathy. By enthusiasm, we understand that particular emotional glow and warmth of delight experienced upon the attainment of new knowledge, or a new idea. All of us have greater or less experience of such emotion; but so soon do we turn aside into the avenues of sordidness and selfishness, to see what of gain or position may be made out of the newly-gotten idea, that the sensation, like the sparkle and aroma of the newly uncorked vintage, wastes with the touch of early use.
A pure and unalloyed enthusiasm is not found in companionship with avarice, ambition and untruthfulness. The purely selfish intriguer may be impelled by his desires to heroic efforts and deeds of daring, but is ever a stranger to that holy poetic fire which warmed and illumined the pathway in the life of our distinguished comrade. To say then, that he was enthusiastic, is to say was truthful and loyal to his convictions.
Peculiarities of organization and modes of life as before intimated, render enthusiasm with most of us an ephemeral affair. With our dear departed friend, this activity was in ceaseless motion, even present.He loved the truth for itself, and for for its usefulness to humanity; he loved it as the young mother loves her newly first born; and as the love grew older, it grew stronger and warmer until, in the very last days of a long and eventful life, it shone with a phosphorescent glow and undimmed splendor. His unselfish love of the truth and devotion to conviction, was a thing of beauty a joy forever. With all my soul I bow with reverence and adoration in the presence of a life so resplendent with loyalty to truth or at least that which he believed to be true. Hundreds of practitioners the country over, evince much of his brainpower and industry but for want of his mental warmth have never approached his eminence. There seemed to be a charm and magnetism about this element of his character, which sent him at a bound, away ahead of all competition. When new knowledge, or a new truth, had set his head and heart fairly aglow, he never halted to inquire what might be the consequence of its adoption: whether it would gain and position or loss and disparagement.
In the early years of his life he was requested by his preceptor to furnish a paper in refutation of homoeopathy. Most young men, under such circumstances would have set to work in quest of material to furnish the desired refutation and thereby receive the approbation of his superior. But he, with a true nobility of soul went straight to the side of homoeopathy to ascertain what might be said in its favor, with the result of his immediate conviction and conversion. instead of the contemplated refutation.
At a later period of his life, he with another, was sent abroad by his government for scientific purposes. Very soon he was detected by one of his medical associates in the promulgation and practice of homoeopathy. At once his conduct was reported to his superiors. He was ordered to confine his attention to special objects of his appointment.
Promptly he closed his portfolio, set his papers and accounts in order, tendered his resignation, entered upon his lifework in the teaching and practice of his profession; and so continued to teach and to practice, through good or evil report, praise or disparagement living long enough to see the hated heresy a power in the civilized world, and a boon to humanity in the ills to which flesh is heir.
In tracing his life and character, we find a striking parallel to that of the dramatic life of the illustrious Apostle Paul who had but to know the truth of his convictions in any given premise, and he was ready to brave all the perils and hardships of fire, famine, stripes, imprisonment, shipwreck and martyrdom in its vindication. The trials of our friend were less literal and corporeal, but the social and official of his early days were days were scarcely less trying to a sensitive and noble nature. Who shall estimate the results of such a life as its benign influence radiates and ramifies down the chambers and corridors of time through ceaseless future ages, until our efforts at comprehension are paled and wearied as in an attempt to grasp infinity.
If a man die, shall he live again? Let us, our friends, in this our hour of bereavement accept such a life and character as a great and mighty revelation in behalf of the soul’s immortality. The good father never made such a life to go down in one eternal night of annihilation. In the matter of what we call his death, we recognize the breaking up of the casket in order that the jewel may have a new setting, to fit it for the glories and splendor of the great beyond, where it is destined to glow and sparkle with an ever increasing brilliancy, through the countless cycles of an eternity of which we may talk and write, but of which our present finite powers can have but a poverty of expression or appreciation.
Our friend in the flesh has gone we shall see his face here no more forever. For eighty long winters and summers did he continue the voyage of life and when his mortality went down in the Jordan of death, he went down as some gallant ship, with sails unfurled and banners flying with the inscription high over all: Homoeopathy as a truth once, always and forever.
In 1878 and 1879 he published 2 editions of his book, Sunstroke and Its Homeopathic Treatment.
Upon Hering's death in 1880 Knerr became responsible for the completion of the 10-volume Guiding Symptoms.
Dr. Knerr wrote 2-volume Repertory to the Guiding Symptoms,