Soon after this (six years in all) he accepted an invitation to come to Philadelphia, where he arrived in January, 1833.
From here-
Out of his self-drawing web he gives us note, The force of his own merit makes his way; A gift that Heaven gives for him,
We see him always intent upon his grand mission and entering upon his new work with renewed purpose. His enthusiasm for the theme of his chosen life-work overcame every opposition, and we seen him ere the mantle of citizenship draped his manly form, lecturing in his native tongue to the few but earnest disciples of the new system gathered together to do homage to their distinguished science, he labored constantly and enthusiastically for its advancement. He was the first physician who taught homoeopathy publicly, at Allentown, Pa., and in 1835, in conjunction with Dr. Wesselhoeft, and others he organized The North American Academy of the Homoeopathic Healing Art, which flourished for a season and accomplished a great amount of good to those interested in its work. This institution temporarily succumbed to the pressure of pecuniary embarrassment, but soon after was revived on a larger and more extended scale as The Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, It was the master spirit of Dr. Hering, the liberal, energetic and enthusiastic admirer of a broad and liberal education in the arts and sciences, that gave birth to our own American Institute, the first national medical organization in the United States. His contributions to the homoeopathic literature, coeval with the Archives, even at that early day, secured for him an honorable position in the world of letters and established him as a worthy standard-bearer of our exclusive law of cure. I will not speak of his many and interesting contributions to our Materia Medica in which he was, of all others in this country, its most diligent and faithful contributor. I will leave that with one more competent to do the subject justice. He was truly the pioneer of our school of medicine in the United States, and by his labors on our Materia Medica he has added more wealth to our school of practice than any other man living since the days of the immortal founder of our school.
The great joy of his late days, says a distinguished scholar and contemporary, was the reading of the address delivered by the President of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, in which the methods of Hahnemann and the immutable principles governing our school were so earnestly laid before our National Institute, as were also the proceedings of its members. A close student, an able teacher and an indefatigable worker for more than half a century, he furnished valuable and often brilliant articles to the periodical literature of America and Germany. In his social life he possessed a fund of anecdote and humor that made him a genial companion and an agreeable friend. He enjoyed in turn a good joke, and laughed heartily at its recital. Of late years his bodily vigor gradually failed, in consequence of his mature years and frequent asthmatic attacks which prostrated him severely. I remember him well at Centennial meeting, during my visit to Philadelphia a that time. I was invited to his house and became one of his few guests at a supper given on that memorable occasion.
He died as he lived, a firm friend, a devoted student and an uncompromising disciple of the truths taught by the immortal Hahnemann. He was borne to his last resting place at Laurel Hill by friends and colleagues who had shared his toil, and who gave him. Tears for his love, joy for his fortune and honor for his valor.
Prof. T.P. Wilson spoke as follows:
The glory of the Roman Empire and the name of Julius Caesar are inseparably connected. The grandeur of the American Republic and the name of George Washington are almost one and the same thing. And so I turn to the name of Constantine Hering, but I need not ask to what system of philosophy, to what department of knowledge, or to what great enterprise that name is indissolubly joined.
Constantine Hering and American Homoeopathy have grown together, the one from infancy to old age, crowned at last by the laurels of death, and the other, from infancy toward a matured youth; and so closely have they been joined that nothing but the searching hand of death could put them asunder.
Yet, in a certain sense, Hering is not dead. In the highest sense in which he lived, he still lives; and will continue to live; and his acts will be repeated- In states unborn and accents yet unknown.
When Hering was born, medical science and art were without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. As night upon the seas enfolds the boundless waters in her jetty wings, so in those days, chaos covered and clouded all. Scarce one department of our present system of medicine had more than a local habitation and a name. Anatomy had achieved some progress, and the human body had itself undergone some rude and imperfect explorations-no more; but physiology was as a dream o the human mind, and its beauties had not reached the point of conceptions, much less had they been born. Pathology was an inextricable mass of facts and fancies, and imperfect explorations-no more; but physiology was as a dream to the human mind, and its beauties had not reached the point of conception, much less had they been born. Pathology was an inextricable mass of facts and fancies, and upon these sat superstition enthroned, threatening divine venegeanance to all who had the temerity to question their real character. Surgery, with its rude implements, was staining the earth with human gore; and while ignorantly striving to relieve, it added, indefinitely to the sum of human misery. As for the general practice of medicine, it was confusion worse confounded. Empiricism reigned supreme, and being without law or order, it was without success. It was then that of great Frenchman Bichat said of medical practice, It is an incoherent assemblage of incoherent ideas, and is perhaps of all the sciences that which best shows the caprice of the human mind. It is a shapeless assemblage of inaccurate ideas, of observations often puerile, of deceptive remedies, and of formulae as fantastically conceived as they are tediously arranged.
It was into this age that Constantine Hering was born. And when he had come to mature life, it must have been a strange infatuation that led him to select medicine as his life’s work. Perhaps it was in the vain hope that he might amend its broken ways. Perhaps it was under the delusive teachings of his preceptors, that taught him that :
1st. Medicine was a great and perfect art.
2nd. It had some few minor imperfections which might be improved; and
3rd. That he that would attempt to improve it would in all human probability be eternally damned.
Passing out of the deleterious influences of the schools in to a wider arena of thought, young Hering heard of the writings of one of his fellow-countrymen, a distinguished German physician, by the name of Samuel Hahnemann. He went to the store and bought his books. He took them home to read and to try to understand them.
Like another, in later years, he might have used those books for wadding to load a rusty ancient gun, and leaving to others to fire the train, he might have escaped across the seas to await the result of the explosion- and he might have returned to find no damage done worth speaking about. Hering did sincerely except to over-throw Hahnemann’s argument; but was himself overthrown. He had read Hahnemann’s writings, caught such glimpses of the truth.
For more than fifty years he was faithful follower of Hahnemann’s teachings. If he had a creed it was short one and to the purpose; I believe in the one great law of cure.
With him that was not blind faith. He brought that declaration to the test of experience applying it with infinite patience to multitudes of suffering men. Women and children for me say here that Constantine Hering was no idle dreamer. He never attempted to evolve truth out of only test by which it may be proven namely demonstration.
I do not think his mental constitution led him far into the rationale of the law. He was no speculator. He looked at this truth as being thoroughly a practical one; and it was his life’s labor to increase the facility of its application. And in that life there was wrought the labors of two score of the ordinary men of the profession. I think I may safely say that Constantine Hering was chiefly great because he was an incessant toiler. I do not think he ever grew weary of his task.
If you will go back to the time when he landed on the shores of this new country with this new truth burning like a sacred fire on the altar of his heart, you will see him, an alien and a stranger looking in vain amid a people whose language he did not understand, for kindred spirits, with whom he might commune, and for temples of science to whose, altars he might bring his spotless offerings. There were medical schools and journals and societies and there were thousands of medical men, but they had no sympathy with his thought. But, ah his was a heroic soul He knew the truth; he loved and worshipped it, and he resolved to give it to the world. In a little town in Pennsylvania, he laid the foundation of his work I have never been at Allentown, but I would walk its streets today, if I could, with reverence. The rostrum and the press were the agencies he chose for his instruments. And how well they did their work, let the record of the past half century testify.
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,