Hering says the long and difficult names in botany and pathology were invented by the French. He would like to see plates made showing characteristics and structural differences in plants, which would greatly simplify the study botany. Even plant has certain characteristics which distinguish it from all others.
June 3, 1869. Oken. Medical Associations. American Institute of Homoeopathy. Oken, the great German naturalist, came to Goettingen to attend a convention at which were exhibited some rare specimens. Among these was a snail which I had examined and studied in South America. The snail, which is many-coloured, lay eggs as large as those from sparrows, with a hard shell.
Oken, then a young student, who looked more like a tailor’s apprentice, walked up and down before the exhibits and noticed that this snail was placed among water snails. While it actually belonged to a variety of land snails, and he so expressed himself. Blumemfeldt, and a few other scientific men, who overheard the remark, also the Duke who was present, challenged the young man’s assertion, saying: Do you not see the tiny bivalve attached to the shell of the snail?’ Certainly; but the snail must have fallen into the water’, the young naturalist said. They laughed him to scorn.
Oken said nothing more, went home, where a few weeks later he was visited by the Duke, who first asked his name, then why he had contradicted the learned men at the exposition. My name is Ludwig Oken. My reason for saying that the snail is a land-snail is because a water snail breathes through a pair of small horns which, if they had dropped off from the specimen, would have left depressions.’ The Duke was astonished at the young man’s knowledge.
Four weeks later he was given a professorship in one of the universities and shortly after he was married to the daughter of a prominent man. Oken was the first to start regular meetings, conventions of naturalists and other learned men. At first these were sparsely attended, but later crowded.
Dr. Hering led, in this country, by helping to organize the first medical association: the American Institute of Homoeopathy, of which he was the first president; later the allopaths followed suit, and there are now more conventions of every kind than you can shake a stick at, including men and women of all denominations.
The city of Boston has devoted twenty-five hundred dollars for the entertainment of members of the American Institute at its next meeting, to be held there in the coming week, which is the first public recognition of the kind our cause has received.
Special Form of Type (Organschrijt) I began work on this while still in Suriname. The invention consists of signs to delineate form and position of mouth and tongue while pronouncing letters. Vowels are modifications of a circle. These must be very correct. The advantages of such a method would be its brevity, for as much as is ordinarily printed on a single page in our books could be printed in one line. The lines run from top to bottom of the page. The making of the type would not be difficult. There are certain signs, f.i., to express Schla, Schli, Schlo, Schlu. It was my desire that the students at the Allentown Academy should learn stenography to take notes of symptoms in shorthand.
This led me to make mention of my keeping tablets under the table for longhand notation. Hering said:That you need not do; keep them on the table. It is this method I am pursuing, of making jottings in long hand, as rapidly as possible, with pencil on paper, which afterwards I copy, with pen and ink, into my diary. Fortunately the ink has preserved its quality in all the years; now more than half a century.
Lingen.
One of my former assistants, Dr. Ligen, who died last july, left a fortune of about 200,000. He was a great speculator.
Sunday Dispensary.
Today I dispensed medicine for the first time from the Sunday dispensary. I had two women patients, of respectable appearance, who offered pay, which was not accepted. I hope the dispensary service will prove a blessing to the needy who are prevented from coming during working hours.
June 7, 1869.
Ignorance.
I no longer have any sympathy for the ignorant. I once attended a family in which there was a daughter who steadily disobeyed my instructions, and sneered at homoeopathy. Her father compelled her to take the treatment. She had a fall in which she hurt her knee. I treated her for the injury and she got better, but when her father died she returned to allopathic treatment. In a few months her leg was amputated above the knee. Her brother brought the severed limb to my office for inspection. I never saw a healthier appearing knee joint. The limb, which I should have kept, was buried. The victim is now limping about on an artificial leg. One of the leading allopaths pronounced the operation one of malpractice.
Allentown Academy.
When the Academy was started the sum of seven thousand dollars was raised in one day. Four acres of land were brought and two handsome buildings put up. A dishonest local banker finally wrecked the institution. He died a miserable death.
Helfrich. Wesselhoeft.
My friend, John Helfrich, a country clergyman, was a man of courage and indomitable character, with a well grounded knowledge of homoeopathic therapeutics. On Sundays the farmers round about came to him in numbers to be treated. Dr. Wesselhoeft from Bath, Pa., visited him every four weeks, on Sundays, driving a horse and buggy, from Northampton to Maxatawney in the adjoining country, a distance of about twenty-five miles.
This clergyman was my great uncle. Following his example there were nine or more young men, including myself, who became homoeopathic practitioners.
June 11, 1869.
Hahnemann’s Birthday, April 10th, 1755.
Hahnemann’s Father
In the German journal Zeitschrift fuer Homoeopathische Klinik, Feb. 1, 1855, No. 3, is found the following notice: The one hundreth anniversary of Hahnemann’s birth is to be celebrated, at Meissen. The committee is to get information from city councils in regard to Hahnemann’s earlier life. A bust of Hahnemann is to be placed in the hall of the Public School.
Another documents, presented by Professor Peters, is the following record of Hahnemann’s birth: Christian Friederich Samuel Hahnemann was born on April 11, 1755, and christened on April 13 of the same year by M. Junghanns. His father was Christian Gottfried Hahnemann, his mother Johanna Christiana, nee Spiess. The names if the sponsors are omitted from the church records; a space for them is left blank.
It would appear as if Hahnemann was born under the sign of Venus. The number eleven is painly written and admits of no doubt as to the date of his birth. From the register of the Latin school, in Meissen, we obtain the following: No 20. Christian Gottfried Samuel Hahnemann, son of the porcelain painter, age 12. Class 11, January 20th, 1767. Corroborated by Gottlob Ehrenfried Dietrich, Rector of Public Schools in Meissen. Friederich August Buerger was rector of the school which Hahnemann entered, and M. Johann August Mueller, who later became active as Tertius, Conrector and Rector in the Public School.
From accounts in the ledgers of the public school we have the following: Christian Friederich Samuel Hahnemann visited the Fuerstenschule (college for the sons of nobility) up to Easter 1775. The name first appears in the account of Easter, 1771, which corresponds with the signature in the album for Nov. 29th, 1770. Hahnemann was also Extraner (day pupil) in the house of the Three Colleagues, under M. Mueller, who is said to have been a splendid instructor. He was given the position of Famulus (amenuensis) to Mueller. On April 24th, 1755, Hahnemann and his fellow-student, Karl Friederich Lehman, from Dresden, delivered valedictory addresses in public which were responded to by Karl August Funke.
The above extracts are pronounced authentic by Professor Dr. Peters. The reason for Hahnemann’s name being registered as born on the 11th of April, is that it was a custom to bring newly- born infants to church for baptism a couple of days after birth. Nurses, to gain a day, sometimes gave the date of the child’s birth a day later than its actual occurrence. It was so in Hahnemann’s case; also with Schiller, who was born on the tenth of the month, but registered on the eleventh, which confirms a duplicature of events in history.
A Professor Fluegel told me that he had been informed by one of the older workers in the Porcelain factory of Meissen that Hahnemann’s father was in the habit of locking-in his young son when leaving for the factory, after having given him a difficult problem to solve, or to think about, until he return; thus striving to make him a thinker.
Botany.
In my boyhood days I became interested in the study of botany. On my excursions into the neighbouring hills, and through the country, I stopped by the wayside, in Inns and Kneipen (saloons) to assort and press my plants. Here, when a boy, I heard and learned the popular phrases and expressions of the people, which I had never heard at home. My father, who was very strict, did not allow us to make use of any vulgar expressions. One time when walking along the road I met a farmer who asked me if I knew what the word Standpunkt (Standpoint) meant; saying that his minister was preaching all the time about standpoint, and to him, the farmer, it seemed to be a most ridiculous thing to talk about, a thing without a meaning. In the evening I repeated this conversation to my father, and several older gentleman, who were present. They all laughed heartily and said it was nonsense to use such unmeaning language, especially when speaking to the illiterate.
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,