There is not one, here present but feels his loss, and will continue to feel that a good, earnest, true man has been called from our midst.
At the request of the Chair, Dr.J.C. Guernsey read the following letter from Dr. A.R. Thomas: Sunday, July 25th, 1880. Dear Doctor: Having an urgent professional call to the country, one which will make it impossible for me to be present at the meeting called for this p.m., I desire to take this method of expressing my full sympathy with any action that may be taken with the view of doing honor to the memory of the illustrious and lamented deceased.
While all will admit the wide influence of the labors of Dr. Hering in the past, and the fact that this influence must extend far into the commit future what more fitting memorial of our appreciation of his labors, on the part of the profession than a united and vigorous movement for securing, what he has so long labored and prepared for, what this community and the country have reason to expect of Philadelphia-a permanently established and large general hospital.
During the life of Dr. Hering the ultimate purpose of every act or thought was the promotion of the one great aim of his life-the development and dissemination of the principles of Homoeopathy. No sacrifice of money, time, or rest was too great when required for this object, and now that the largest and ripest fruit of this labor may be gathered, there remains a work for us to perform, and one that should command the united and hearty co-operation of every member of the profession.
Regretting that I am unable to join personally in the action of the meeting. I am. Very truly yours, A.R.THOMAS.
Dr. Pemberton Dudley said: I feel that no words of ours can at all express what we feel at the loss, the profession and the world have sustained in the death of Dr. Hering. I think and know, that the homoeopathic profession should feel today very much as the passenger feels, away out from the coast, when the pilot takes leave of the ship; because whatever may have been the perfection with which the law under which we labor was developed by Hahnemann, it required something more than Hahnemann to establish the art and principles of medicine, under the law, throughout the world. Hahnemann was a man of research, as was Hering, but Hering was a man of different mould; the man to establish the new system in a new world.
The question is asked: Who will take Dr. Herings place? Nobody will take it. The world does not need another Hering. Homoeopathy does not need to be established a second time in America. We no more need another Hering than we need another Newton, another Kepler or another Washington. Homoeopathy is established now, and will go on doing universal good throughout the civilized world.
There were very few men, perhaps none, who could do the work that he has done. But there are other men, weaker perhaps, who can take up the work where he has left it. I believe that there is a Providence watching over homoeopathy; and I believe that there is a Providence watching over homoeopathy; and I believe we should take the death of Dr. Hering as an evidence that God watches over our cause. It will occur to all that the death of Dr. Hering fell upon an anniversary, fifty-two years from the day when homoeopathy was first introduced into the State : and his funeral occurs upon another, fifty-two years from the day when he first secured his Lachesis.
There were very few men, perhaps none, who could do the work that he has done. But there are other men, weaker perhaps, who can take up the work where he has left it. I believe that there is a Providence watching over homoeopathy; and I believe we should take the death of Dr. Hering as an evidence that God watches over our cause. It will occur to all that the death of Dr.Hering fell upon an anniversary, fifty-two years from the day when homoeopathy was first introduced into the State: and his funeral occurs upon another, fifty-two years from the day when he first secured his Lachesis.
But we have other evidences that Homoeopathy is going right on with renewed vigor. There is a tendency in men to lean upon each other; but in order to strengthen a man he must be made to lean upon himself to strengthen the spinal column put a weight upon his shoulders. I question whether we have not bee leaning on him too much, and now that he is gone, whether we will not feel that there is more resting upon us: whether the rising generation will not feel that there is a burden resting on them that their predecessors did not feel; whether, when we feel that the death of Dr. Hering has severed a link between us and Hahnemann, cut us loose from the time when there was no Homoeopathy, it will not give us a new impetus that will carry us on to victories still more glorious than those we have already achieved?
Dr. Lee, chairman of the meeting, then said:
It is hardly necessary for me to say anything after the liberal expressions already made, of the high respect I have for the memory of Dr.Hering.
I felt, when the announcement was made of his death, that truly a great man had fallen. But perhaps, as Dr. Dudley has said, it may produce a distribution of labors which may lead to good. A supervising Providence never leaves a work that needs its protection; and I would merely express the exhortation: let us try and imitate the illustrious example set by Dr. Hering, who was willing to sacrifice fortune, and reckless of all personal interests to further the cause of Homoeopathy. If we all had his enthusiasm, victory would be far nearer than it seems.
Telegrams from a number of physicians in various parts of the United States expressing the great loss the medical profession had sustained in the death of Dr. Hering, were read,
A number of names of members of the profession, friends of Dr. Hering, constituting The Old Guard were named as pallbearers at the funeral.
There were : Chas, G. Raue, M. D., Philadelphia James Kitchen, M. D. Ad. Lippe, M. D. H. N. Guernsey. M. D.
LIFE OF HERING
C. Neidhard, M. D., A. W. Koch, M. D., A. R. Thomas, M. D., J. H. Pulte, M. D., Cincinnati Wm. Wesselhoeft, M. D., Boston F. R. McManus, M. D., Baltimore H. Detwiller, M. D., Easton John Romig, M. D., Allentown P.P. Wells, M. D., Brooklyn Edw. Bayard, M. D., New York John F. Gray, M. D., S. Lilienthal, M. D.,
Memorial meetings were held in many places throughout the world where Constantine Hering’s name was revered.
At the meeting of the New York State Society, held in Brooklyn, September 7, 1880, Dr. P. P. Wells of Brooklyn, spoke as follows:
Mr. President: Before proceeding to read what I have written, it will be, perhaps, but just to myself to say that I was taken altogether by surprise last evening on receiving notice that I had been appointed to prepare resolutions commemorative of the death of our colleague, Dr. Hering. The time given in which to arrange my thoughts appropriately to so vast a subject and put them on paper, was so brief that it was exceedingly embarrassing. The interest that I have in the memory of that great man, and the many years of intimacy I have had with him, forbade my declining to attempt, as best I could, to present to you this morning the brief preamble and resolutions which I now read:
In Oschatz, in Saxony, on January 1, 1800, it pleased Almighty God to give a great blessing to the world of science, and to the world of suffering, in the birth of an infant, who afterwards became known as the man Constantine Hering. It pleased the same Almighty goodness to remove him from us, by death, on the twenty-third day of July, 1880. In view of the life and the labors which filled the space between these points of time there are to be mentioned:
1st. Gratitude to Him who gave so long life, and so great powers for good, to our friend, and brother, and that for so many years He gave it to us to receive inspiration from his great knowledge and generous spirit, becoming to us our leader and teacher, our father and friend, our light in the art of healing, and our example in his never failing devotion to the cause and interests of truth in all the time and circumstances through which he passed. 2nd. Gratitude to the memory of him by whose labors we have been so greatly enriched.
3rd. That in Hering, the philosopher, we remember his vast extent of knowledge, his vigorous pursuit and grasp of facts, his ready appropriation of these and his facile tracing of the relationship of new facts to old, and their sure reference to their proper place in the circle of facts known.
4th That in him, as a teacher, we remember his clear perception of facts, and of just those his pupil needed first to know, and his skill in imparting them in the manner and sequence best adapted to meet those needs, and his heartfelt gladness in giving from his fulness to the wants of all who would learn. That he never was weary of adding to the knowledge of others from the vast treasures he had gathered in his long life of unexampled activity.
5th. As a physician, we remember his loyalty to his convictions of truth, and to the law of healing he had accepted from the great Master: his clear perception of the facts of disease and of the specification of the agencies he employed for its cure, and his never-failing or faltering endeavors to add to the number of these, and from these endeavors have come to us a knowledge of many of our most precious remedies.
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,