The idea of the magnetic telegraph was given to Morse by a Frenchman on board ship. My friend, General Hubbell, a Philadelphian, had the honour of finding this out. Morse, who was stupid, took out a patent with the help of man by the name of Campbell. The first test was made over a wire from Boston to Washington. As if a distance of a few miles, or a million could have made any difference in the result of the experiment Others, who disputed the right of taking out a patent on a principle, began to make better instruments. I thought Morse should have received a premium for his share in the invention. Some were in agreement with this, others were not. I was told that I did not know the devil’s grandmother, for that matter, since I have never seen her There should not be any patents. A fair reward should be given to the inventor; not a million but a sum proportionate to the value of his discovery.
Inventions. Malleable Glass. Varnish. Platinum. Stapf.
There was a king in ancient Syracuse to whom came a man saying: Your majesty, I have made this beautiful glass goblet. Take it and cast it upon the floor.’ No’ said the king, It is too beautiful to be destroyed.’ But he threw it down, and it was not broken by the fall, only bent out of shape. The man took a hammer and hammered it back to its original shape. The king gave orders to have the fellow hanged.
A fairy tale now come true through the discovery of malleable and nonshatterable glass.
Dr. Zumbrook, my chemist, has made an accidental discovery of a wonderful varnish in a combination of sugar, saltpeter and sulphuric acid, under a freezing process. When applied to paper or to an engraving, it refracted light as brilliantly as a diamond. It would have been a valuable varnish to use on oil paintings. The discovery might have made Zumbrook rich, but he could not reproduce the article. The varnish did not have the quality to resist alcohol. Peterhofer discovered a method by which to restore oil paintings.
Platinum was discovered in Mexico. A shipload of it was to sent to Spain. The Spanish government had the ship scuttled and sunk. The first platinum was smuggled into England. A nugget of it, a rare gift, was sent to Carl August.
A certain German duke owned a museum which contained a large collection of minerals, among which which were some valuable specimens of Platinum. Some one remarked that these could be of no use to the world.
There was an apothecary, in a certain small town by the name of Doebereiner, whose genius Goethe discovered and helped him to secure a professorship in chemistry at the University of Jena. Doebereiner, of retiring disposition, hesitated a while but finally accepted the position. The students were slow to accept him but he began to lecture and to make experiments which soon aroused enthusiasm for chemistry in the classes.
The duke sent his specimens of Platinum to Doebereiner and asked him to put them to some use. Doebreiner wept for joy, like a child, when he saw what he had received. He examined the Platinum and found out it is properties. The English went into a jealous rage, as they always do when a German makes a discovery. Doebereiner made public his findings. Later, Wollaston, of England, discovered the ductile properties of the metal.
A retort was manufactured in which Sulphuric acid, the basis of the newer chemistry, was distilled. Doebereiner obtained a precipitate from the metal, of sponge like character, which resembled tiny trees or mosses. He brought various gases in contact with these without any apparent result, until he tried nitrogen gas which caused them to burn like tinder. When the flame went out, the little sponge remained unchanged. He allowed the gas to pass through this which caused it to glow. He had brought the heaviest substance in contact with the lightest-the result was a flame. He next invented a lighter, for lighting cigars. He informed Goethe of his discovery. Goethe wrote: I will come at once to see you.
In Berlin were made the first medallions from Platinum. Staff, the first to follow Hahnemann, was my intimate friend. Hahnemann had proved the metals silver gold and zinc. Stapf undertook to prove Platinum. With considerable difficulty he obtained a trituration from the spongy metallic substance and made a proving of it. He had a hard time to induce Doebereiner to let him have even a small quantity of the valuable metal. The chemist said he must first ask the Duke’s permission. All I need.’said Stapf, is a single gramme.’ The chemist laughed heartily and said: You are welcome to that much. Take it and dissolve the tiny sponges in nitromuriatic acid.’ Stapf at first tried to make a triturate but did not succeed After some reflection he made the solution, suspended small bars of steel in it, which attracted the dust particles thus obtaining a precipitate from which he made his provings. With the potentized Platina he cured three or four ladies at the ducal court, which later won him the title of Medicinalrath, (Medical adviser at court). All honour and glory to Stapf
I have made mention of these occurrences in American Drug Provings. What was there printed was read daily to Stapf after he had gone blind. He had written to me: Hering stay in America. It is the land for homoeopathy’,
Inventors. A Cannon. Petchke. Secrets.
Next to Hering, at table sat one Petchke, a German, nicknamed Canonicus because he had invented a cannon which he called the Pacificator, which would not explode and could hit the mark at ten miles. Hering said ironically I would hang every single inventor But doctor, said the inventor of the big gun, that would be a bit too severe. No said Hering, I would not do that to inventors, but I would propose a government reward. I would hang them only for keeping their discoveries a secret
Eclipses. Eclipses of the sun and moon are occasions which I would like to see observed as national holidays. July 8, 1869 The Jennichenb Potencies. Lippe. Hofrath. Ridicule. Phrases. Secrets. A number of the Allgemeine Zeitung, the principal German Homoeopathic journal, arrived this morning. It contained an article, by Hofrath, in Prague, entitled Again the High potencies.
There had been a letter from Lippe to Hofrath or may be to the journal accusing Hering of conspiring with Jenichen to keep his method of potentizing a secret. The letter charges commercialism and secrecy (Geheimnisskraemerei). Lippe, writing at a midnight hour, disclaims that he is trying to injure Hering by laying blame upon him and calls this Scheuslichkeiten in die schuhe schieben (shoving abominable things into men’s shoes). He expresses regret that the homoeopaths, in Germany, fail to acknowledge work done here; notably that they have avoided making a translation of his article in the Hahnemannian Monthly, in which he scolds Fincke, whom he calls before a tribunal to answer for putting the seal of secrecy upon his method of potentizing; more Geheimniss kraemerei.
Further Hofrath says that he has always regarded Hering, as by nature, an honourable man, who would not have anything to do with secret-mongers, and hopes that this blot, which blackens homoeopathy, will soon be obliterated. He winds up with the hope that Dr. Hering will tell
Hering read the scrurrilous article quite coolly and laughed. I myself was furious; at Lippe, at Hofrath, at their unfair imputations. I believe, I sore for the first time since my early days on the farm. I said Lippe ought to be shot Dr. Hering still laughed. Now arrived our Lion, Raue, who stormed and said: Dr. Hering must reply at once Hering said: No I have already violated my rule not to read anything that appears against me in print.
At luncheon Dr.Hering told the following: It was Jenichen’s intention to leave his fortune to me with which to erect a hospital in this country, in which only his potencies were to be used. He had made this bequest through the president of United States; I think it was Fillmore, to be carried out in case of my death. I had a long correspondence with Jenichen during this period. In his letters he made known to me the method by which he made his potencies, viz: he first of all triturates his drugs adds the alcohol, gives the preparation a thorough shaking, and then allows it to evaporate before continuing the process of dynamization.
Copies of his letters, made by my secretary, I have sent to my brother-in-law, Hartlaub, in Germany. On a sudden Jenichen changed his mind and willed his money to any physician living in a small town in Germany, who will be willing to make use of his potencies in treating the poor.
It was Rentsch who accepted this proposition, but he began to place the Jenichen potencies on the market, in fact, wrote to me and asked me to sell them in America, which I refused to do. The great secret of the whole business is that Jenichen allowed his drugs to evaporate before adding alcohol and shaking them, by hand, in the regular way. Fincke did not shake his potencies said it was not necessary.
Jenichen was a powerfully built man with a strong arm (as shown in his portrait). At one time, on the street, he forcibly held a team of runaway horses harnessed to a carriage in which the Duke and Duchess were riding. For this service he was knighted and given the title of Master of Horse.
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,