To cure myself of a passion to travel in foreign countries I wrote a fairy tale which I named. Dr.Ameise (Dr. Ant).
A young doctor leaves home to travel in foreign parts. He comes to a mountain where dwells fairy who changes him to an ant. He comes down from the mountain and sees an ant hill in the valley. He stops and gazes the turmoil which goes on before his eyes. Hither and thither, in all directions, rush the busy creatures as if their lives depended on getting their work done, as do inhabitants in the streets of a big city during business hours.
He did not like the turmoil, wished himself back in his home with his sweetheart. Early one morning he climbs a stalk on which hangs a drop of dew, sparkling in the sunlight. In the dewdrop is mirrored the image of his beloved. He experiences tearful regrets at having wandered away from home.
He returns there and marries the girl of his choice, and I suppose they lived happily ever after. When I read the fairy tale to Emma Richter she was delighted. Went into ecstacies over it. But,’ I said: I must first find out if the story of the dewdrop is true to nature.’ By no means,’ said she, The tale must remain as it is told.’ By this I saw that after all her mind did not tend toward strict scientific investigation. Peter Merten. A Fairy Tale.
Peter Merten, a young goatherd, went to the Queen of the Clouds to complain about her many weeping maidens, who brought too much rain, which caused the rocks to roll down from the mountain side. I am afraid that I cannot stop them,’ said the Queen of the Clouds. You must go to the King of the Winds and ask him to stop blowing so hard in this direction, then I will no longer have to drift over your mountain.’
Peter went to the King of the Winds. The King flew into a rage, and began to swear horribly.Thunder and lightning,’ Don’t you see that I must blow? Don’t you see that the sun is burning like mad, and everything on earth would sizzle and go up in flames if I stopped blowing? Can’t you smell the smoking Sahara down there? Go to the Queen of the Sun and ask her to cool off a bit.’
Well and good, ‘ said Peter, but how will I get there?’ Then the Wind King’s soldiers-he had a regiment of them cursing and fuming, loaded him into one of their cannons and shot him to the Sun. When he arrived there he asked for the Sun Queen and soon was in her presence. She lost no time in telling him that if she granted his request, nothing would grow here he came from, and his goats would perish for want of something to eat, and all other creatures upon earth with them.
She gave him this advice: Plant shrubbery on the side of your mountain to keep the rocks from rolling down to the valley.’ This appealed to Peter who promised to follow the advice of the Sun Queen. But,’ said he: How will I get down from here?’ Observe my maidens,’ said the Queen. who are drawing water at this hour’ (It was just before sundown.) See how they climb up the sunbeams, which they use for ladders, to fill their buckets from the clouds and slide down again to earth upon them just before dark. They will carry you down on their hands and leave you at your home on the mountainside.’ The maidens accomplished their task with many a giggle and roguish glance at the handsome herder.
When he had come down, he was an old man whose children were married and had children of their own. Where had stood his but there was small town, and, most remarkable of all, the inhabitants had planted shrubbery to keep the rocks from rolling. Peter was elected to a public office and lived happily ever after.
The moral of the tale. It was my intention to write a satire against the Tolle causam (remove the cause) so often mentioned in the books of the allopaths. Peter Merten could not remove the cause. The Sun Queen had taught him that all was wisely planned, that evil consequences must be removed by useful remedies. Of course Peter was an old foggy, and behind the times, but his descendents were progressive.
My daughter Odelia has the fairy tale in her possession. It was elaborated pretty thoroughly by me, but should be abbreviated, as much as possible. When completed we will ask Balling to make the illustrations. The Grey Donkey. A Fairy Tale.
The story of The Grey Donkey’ belonged to my friend, the Rev. John Helfrich who had it from his father, and he from his father. Wesselhoeft made a joke of it. Helfrich told it to a party of us when on a ride to the Blue Mountains.
We assembled at Bath, near Allentown. Wesselhoeft drove us in his large wagon to which was harnessed his big sorrel horse, in the direction of Helfrich’s home, and beyond. The trip lasted two days.
In the party was a foreigner by the name of Fehrentheil, a political refugee from Germany. It was Wesselhoeft’s intention to get him to study homoeopathy at the Allentown Academy, for which purpose we were to contribute the money. Fehrentheil was a maker of plans, a promoter. He had discovered a lake, broad as the Schuylkill River, and shaped like a horseshoe, with a waterfall at one end, forming an outlet. The property could be bought for a song. Fehrentheil wished us to buy the land, he would engineer the job, blast ten or twelve feet away from the rocks at the top of the waterfall, completely draining the lake thereby and gaining from ten to thirty acres of meadowland on which to pasture and raise oxen.
All about us, where we stood, reaching into the valley far below, was a wide expanse of red from the blossoms of the mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) then in full bloom, delighting the eye. The beautiful lake was to have been made small, the waterfall destroyed in order to secure an income of five thousand per year from pasture lands.
Like Peter Mertens, in the fairy tale, the promoter’s expectations ran too high and nothing came of the plan. A Caterpillar. Dolichos Pruriens.
One day a hairy caterpillar crept up Mrs. Hering’s arm and left its bristles in her flesh. On the following day, another of the same description, got on the doctor’s leg. Rubbing had aggravated the condition. Hundreds of the sharp hairs had entered the skin and set up a violent irritation.
Early next morning I was called to his bedside-he slept on a couch in his studio-and asked to perform the operation of removing the offending foreign bodies which had caused the irritation. Armed with a magnifying glass and a small forceps, with which to pick out corked vials from boxes of Jenichen’s potencies, the venerable Aesculapius in his night gown, placed in a rather uncomfortable position on a parlor chair, I proceeded with great care, and as much delicacy as possible, to extract the tiny bristles which came out, one at a time, or in small bunches.
While thus employed Hering related to Balling, the artist, who was busy making a pencil sketch of the picture, an experience he had in the tropics when accidentally getting his arm in contact with a specimen of the Dolichos pruriens, a tropical climbing plant, named Cowhage of Cowitch, which bears a seed pod about three inches long, covered with bristles. The plant was proved by Jeanes and is a remedy recommended for Herpes zoster, and the neuralgic condition supervening. It also helps inflammation of the gums (See Dolichos, Guiding Symptoms, vol.5.) By advice of natives Dr. Hering removed the irritating bristles from his arm by applying pure oil to the skin and passing a sharp razor blade over the surface.
September, 18, 1870. Anniversaries. On the occasion of a Fiftieth Anniversary it is expected of one to write a dissertation. I desire no celebration for myself. Not even a serenade. I am going away. Such occasions do not make a good impression of the children; though wives enjoy seeing their husbands honoured.
I had proved as many as a hundred remedies at the time (fifty years ago). Watzke, then notorious with his Leider, Leider,’ (Alas, alas) is dead.
Trinks bragged about his correspondence with Hahnemann concerning a disease he had picked up in Paris. If I should be given an honorary degree in the form of a diploma, I will send it back as a thing for which I have no use whatever. Sanitation. Atmosphere.
The air between partitions and in walls of houses, as like wise the air in churches, becomes stagnant and thus poisonous and is the frequent cause of sickness in children. Dyspepsia. Causes of Disease.
The causes of sickness are usually internal; occasionally external. More often the blame is laid to the climate. Quack medicines are frequently the cause. Hot foods and drinks. These cause Southern dyspepsia. Hot cakes and hot coffee cause callosities. One might as well swallow molten lead. Such cases usually require three years of treatment.
Northern dyspepsia is caused by cold things; ice water and ice cream, which are more dangerous than hot things. Water, to drink, should be of the medium temperature of a place. Five minutes for dinner, with insufficient chewing, is another cause. An hour should be allowed for a meal. A walk of twenty squares, there, and twenty back, before dinner, is advisable. I had in mind to write a book on the Causes of Disease but at the time no one wished to publish it.
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,