Today Dr.Martin came to ask for copy. He asked for more characteristics, such as were being printed in the College Journal. Dr.Hering said that he had thousands of them up-stairs; that he had only waited for Martin to ask for them. It seems that at one time the co-editor had shown reluctance to printing more of the keynotes which had become so popular with the students and subscribers to the Journal. Work on the Repertory.
Dr.Hering asked me today, to make a further classification of the symptoms from Jahr’s Leitfaden (Therapeutic Guide). He said that Jahr gave some remedies, like Aconite and Sulphur almost universally; Kali bich. only once or twice; Gelsem. not at all, and some of the other remedies very rarely. It is a great piece of work to dissect a book of this kind, but it gives one a look behind the curtain, as Hering expresses it.
April 25, 1869.
Ferrum. Digitalis.
Ferrum has great similarity to Rhus tox. It would be interesting to know if there is much iron in the soil where the Rhus grows. I could hardly tell the difference in the cough peculiar to the two remedies. There is also great similarity in the asthmas and neuralgias.
Does Digitalis grow on calcareous soil? The plant grows in large patches as though sown, in the Schwarzwald near Wildbad. I do not know if it is found growing near the Belladonna, but think it is; at least so says Dr. Koch, Sen. The Man who hired a Mule. Anecdote.
A man from ancient Greece hired a mule to ride. It became very warm, the mule sweated, became tired and stood still in the sun. The man got off the mule to rest in the animal’s shadow. The driver, who followed at the mule’s heels, claimed that the shadow belonged to him and not to the man who hired the animal. A quarrel was the result and the case went to court. Query. If a man hires a mule, does he also hire his shadow? Odd Fellows.
Today there was a parade by Odd Fellows. Hering says that the Odd Fellows do a great deal of good. Morgan. Theories.
Professor Morgan preaches his pet theory on spinal centrics and excentrics to Dr.Hering, who does not seem to favor it much. Morgan was the son of a school teacher. Euphrasia and Cepa. Hering calls attention to a comparison between them.
April 27, 1869.
Sugar Cane.
Sugar Cane is planted in beds intersected by canals. The water which is let in at high tide drives the mills. Negroes float the cane to the mills where it is pressed. The men get drowsy over the work at the machines and sometimes are drawn in. An axe is kept ready to hand with which to sever their limbs, when caught.
The liquid pressed from the cane is boiled and the crystallized mass is put into barrels. The leakage is termed Plantation molasses. The sugar cane is soaked and pressed a second time, when it yield a good deal more of sugar. The dry cane should be burned and the ashes put back into the soil. An old farmer once told me, Everything that my acre gives, it must have again. College. Jealousy.
Professors Martin and Koch, of the College, conspire against Professor Gause. The green-eyed monster, jealousy. Palpitation.
Palpitation, worse from motion, is hard to find in the Materia Medica.
April 28, 1869.
A Curse upon Secretmongers. Hering says he has written down a terrible curse against all persons who keep secret things that would be of benefit to the world.
The curse is to be printed. He says: It was written before my acquaintance with Fincke, who kept secret his process of potentization.
The terrible curse condemns offenders to everlasting perdition, in the lowermost depths of hell, to the second and third generations. Hering calls it the most terrible curse ever pronounced. A Fair.
A Fair is to be organized for the benefit of a Homoeopathic Hospital in Philadelphia. The first meeting is to be held at the College. The attendance of two hundred and fifty ladies is expected at the initial meeting. Museum.
I suggest that a museum be established in which, for adornment, there will be columns decorated with designs taken from natural trees, in leafwork, branches and flowers; from the coca tree, the camphor tree, etc. Designs for Grecian columns were taken from nature.
Nitrum.
A keynote of Nitrum is: drinking often but little at a time. The patient drinks little at a time because the act of swallowing interferes with respiration. This is Grauvogl’s observation. Pictures.
Hering is opposed to the hanging of certain pictures of skin diseases on the College walls. It makes the place look like what he quaintly calls a show-shanty.
April 29, 1869.
Newspapers.
The New York Herald was begun in Philadelphia and went to New York. It was a sensational paper which published scandals under the management of Bennett. The Tribune, under Horace Greeley, became an opposition paper. Whatever in the way of editorials appeared in Bennett’s paper, was contradicted in the Tribune, on the following day. This rivalry continued for many years. If the Herald condemned homoeopathy, the Tribune was in favor of it. If the Herald disapproved of spiritualism, the Tribune defended it. The Tribune gained over the Herald when that paper got into bad repute.ascendency
A certain geologist predicted that the waters going over the Falls of Niagara would in time wear away, or undermine the rocks over which they flow and there would no longer be a Niagara. The story was a hoax, which the Herald printed as news. The Tribune had the laugh on its rival.
Yesterday the Philadelphia Press printed an article which said that Greeley had been swindled for the 86the time, by a story that a young man, who had an accomplice in Philadelphia, had induced a certain candidate for office to pay him money for advertising him in the Tribune. Ancestors. Moravians.
Hering’s ancestors were Moravians who spelled their name Hring. They had come from their home in the mountains to settle on the banks of the river Elbe where they became sailmakers and fishermen.
Hering likes the custom of the Moravians which, at sunrise, on Easter morning, brings them to the churchyard where they hold religious services. They keep holy All Saint’s Day, which comes on the second of November. He believes that the Moravians honour men as Saints who have been of great use to the world. Schiller.
The doctor asks me to remind him to tell the story of Schiller in the role of a Saint. The story is about a farmer who prayed to the statue of Schiller. He was put up to it by a student. Plays for the benefit of the Hospital. Gaertner. Septette of Beethoven. Formes. A Fire.
A project for raising funds to build a homoeopathic hospital is under way. Tonight there is to be given a theatrical entertainment for this purpose in Dr.Hering’s house, in which members of his family will participate. The sum of twenty-four dollars was raised by this performance, which is to be devoted to the buying of material to be used at the Fair. Two plays were given, one of them Der Geburtstag der Geister (Birthday of Ghosts) by the children; one of whom, Walter was to play the part of the boy who boasts before the other children that he is not afraid of ghosts. For this he is ridiculed by his playmates. To take revenge upon his tormentors he disguises himself as a ghost, and as such makes his appearance. When the real ghost comes upon the scene the bogus one becomes so frightened that he tears off his mask and sheet, and has to face the ridicule from the other children who call him Hasenfuss (coward).
In a second play, Die Hochzeitsreise by Bendix, Rudolph, the oldest son, took the principal part, that of the Professor; Bertha, a niece, the part of the wife Antonia; Melitta played the part of the Famulus; in men’s clothes. The Professor’s assistant, or student, was played by William Boericke, who later became prominent among homoeopathic physicians. He took the comedy part of Hahnesporn, a man-servant. Miss Raue, niece of Professor Raue of the Hahnemann College, took the part of the chambermaid across the way from the Professor’s house.
The Professor, in white vest, black coat and pants and a high hat was excellently portrayed by Rudolph. The Professor has peculiar notions of a wife’s duties in the home, and after the wedding, is seemingly more in love with his books than with his wife who finds herself in a cheerless house, without servants; no cook, not a decent bedroom, no household comforts, while the Professor, interested to know how the ancient Greeks and Romans treated their wives, forgets that he is a husband. His pretty and determined wife does not relish this and sets about converting her indifferent spouse. She at first succeeds in arousing his jealousy, after which she proposes a wedding-trip. He agrees to this and just before the curtain falls he is seen awkwardly trying to take her into his arms.
The large communicating rooms, with wide folding-doors of mahogany, separating the doctor’s private office from his reception room, afforded an excellent opportunity for a stage setting in the back room, and for places for about forty or fifty friends of the family, who, after enjoying the German play, adjourned to the dining-room across the hall, where ale, tapped from the wood, and pretzels were served by the German maids. All became merriment and German gemuethlichkeit.
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,