DR. ANTON SCHMIT OF VIENNA.
Hahnemann wrote on the 27th April, 1829, to F.R. Rummel: What am I to say about Dr. Schmit of Vienna? He was to me a rare phenomenon; our science may expect much from him. He spent five evenings with me, which gave me great pleasure.
Dr. Schmit wrote to Hahnemann (“Allg. hom. Ztg.” 1833, Vol, I, page 143):
In the last part of the session of the physicians at the Union of Natural Scientists, Homoeopathy was made the subject for discussion. They began by demonstrating the fallacy of the homoeopathic principle and several spoke against homoeopathy. I tried, as I was the only homoeopath present, to defend our cause, but the uproar and rudeness was so great that I could not continue to speak. I had to remain silent and rejoice that I was not turned out of the room. It was truly exasperating to hear and see the passion which almost the whole assembly exhibited towards homoeopathy. When will our opponents realise that through their opposition they do the greatest harm to themselves and to their successors? Lay people take up homoeopathy more and more. As there is a scarcity of homoeopathic and this scarcity will increase, so more of the lay people will study homoeopathic works, procure homoeopathic medicine chests and treat themselves and others. Thus gradually medicine goes into the hands of the laity, from whom the allopaths might have to learn if from lack of patients they are ultimately forced to study homoeopathy, unless they wish to starve or earn their living otherwise than through their practice. For such wickedness blind fury they are to be pitied.
DR. WILH. FLEISCHMANN.
He was one of the most distinguished homoeopathic physicians of German Austrian and Vienna, distinguished by a large number of decorations received from his country, Prussia, Saxony, a Bavaria, etc. He became a homoeopath after having been cured by Hahnemann. He died in his seventieth year on the 23rd November, 1868. He was chief physician at the Hospital of the Grey Sisters Gumpendorf, which he conducted on homoeopathic lines.
“FATHER VEITH.”
He was the most eccentric and at the same time the most successful pioneer of homoeopathy in Austria. He was a Jew and a Catholic, a Redemptorist, a veterinary surgeon, a preacher at the Metropolitan church of San Stephan in Vienna, a doctor and professor of medicine-an unusual combination of activities in life to ninety years. In August of 1787 at had previously been a Rabbi and a very reputed exponent of the Talmud; this son was named Johann Emmanuel. The father instructed him, together with his younger brother Johann Elias, who was only eighteen months younger, in the wisdom of the Talmud. But Emmanuel read with preference, the German books which his father brought him from Vienna. After having left the High School of Prague he studied philosophy for two years, and afterwards, medicine for two years. As the University professors of Prague did not satisfy him he continued his studies in Vienna (1807). The Director of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Vietz, who was at the same time Professor of State Medical Science, admitted him with a salary of 300 fl. and board and lodging to the Institute. Here he was obliged to year students. He published these lectures as a “Manual of Veterinary Science, especially concerning the epidemic diseases of the most useful domestic animals, for physicist, District Surgeons, Veterinary Surgeons and Agriculturists.” This book was considered as the best work in this branch of knowledge and used for fifteen years. In the year 1812 he published his “Inaugural dissertation,” which contained a described of all the wild and cultivated medicinal plants of Austria. Botany was his favorite study. Even in his eighty-eighth year he wrote “Excursions into the realms of Pharmacology and Pharmacodynamics.” he qualified on the 12th November, 1812, and became at once assistant to Professor Vietz. When the latter died in 1814 he was appointed provisional Director of the Veterinary Institute over the heads of the other professors. In 1815 he became Catholic and in 1817 the Emperor Franz appointed him actual Director and First Professor of the Institute above mentioned.
Through two Redemptorist preachers, whose preaching he first attended out of curiosity and then from conviction he was induced to enter the Congregation of the Redemptorists (1818). He now attended the theological lectures, lectured as Professor of Medicine, and carried on his office as Director of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine. He continued his medical appointments and entered his new profession as preacher in the monastery of the Redemptorists. His sermons were very popular on account of his homely nd insistent oratory, and he drew upon himself the jealousy of the less talented brothers of the Order. After ten years sojourn in the monastery, during Lent of the year 1830 and not he day of his last Lenten Sermon, return to consciousness Father Veith hears, amid the commiseration of several of the brothers, the cool remark of the brothers, the cool remark of the Rector: “Nunc certe nobis onus erit” (Now he will certainly be a burden to us-R.H.), and yet then Veith entered the order he presented his honorarium for Veterinary Science, together with 2,000 fl. to th monastery. The callous remark of the Rector immediately induced him to leave the congregation.
During the whole of his monastic period he was also active as a physician within the Order as well as outside the monastery. Already in the year 1824 he acquired a knowledge of homoeopathy. His brother Elias had been cured of a gastric trouble of several years standing by one of the first and oldest homoeopaths of Vienna-Dr. Menz. This induced Father Veith to study the “Organon” and the “Materia Medica.” With the help of the monastic brothers he prepared his own homoeopathic medicines from the plants collected.
When cholera broke our in Vienna in 1830, Father Veith entered on an epoch of the greatest exertion but also of the greatest success. As spiritual pastor he had to bring to the sick, not only the consolations of his religion, but frequently, also as a physician, the saving remedy for cholera. Of 125 patients whom be treated, only three died. He published an essay at the time; “The treatment and Prophylaxis of Asiatic Cholera.” Soon afterwards he was made preacher of the Metropolitan Church of St. Stephan, where he gathered round him a large congregation, until, in the year 1845 he retired, on account of insistent head maladies. During the last twelve years he was completely blind, owing to a cold contracted during a botanical excursion in the high Apis. But his spirit remained constantly active. Sixty works of his bear testimony to this. In the “International Homoeopathic Press” of the year 1875 his last essay appeared, in which he spoke of the vital-force and prophetically exclaimed: “The homoeopathic method of treatment, which if familiar with the diagnostic school of physiology, enriched by many newly proved medicinal substances and intent on constant progress, will be mightily shaken, battered and purified by friend and foe; but it will not become extinct.” He died on the 6th November, 1877, after a short illness, in his ninetieth year. (Regarding Veith’s associations with Hahnemann, see Supplement 117.)
JOSEPH ATTOMYR.
Joseph Attomyr was born on the 9th September, 1807, and was the son of a wheelwright of Diatcovar in Slavonia. Hahnemann expected great things of him on account of his gifts for representing things in a lively, fresh, and powerful manner, for publication. He was brought up by a near relative, who took him of Esseg, where he attended the high school. He entered, in 1825, the Garrison Hospital of Vienna as a student. Dr. Marenzeller was active in Vienna at that time, and the fight against him and homoeopathy dents. It was Dr. Muckisch who especially attacked Marenzeller in an abusive essay. The young practitioner devoured this and was a violent opponent of homoeopathy at the time when he was ordered to the Curassier Regiment, Auersberg, and Ketzkemet. The regimental physician, Dr. Muller, used homoeopathy in practice and theory. When he was sent to the Joseph’s Academy for the study of medicine, and surgery, besides pursuing his studies eagerly, he followed the movement and the attacks on homoeopathy with keen interest. His quick and aggressive character a soon brought him into opposition with the majority of his colleagues with whom he had daily discussion on the advantages of homoeopathy. This excited him so much, as they said in his obituary notice, that he contracted a cough which spitting of blood and was forced to go into the clinic. He had scarcely recovered when he began the old fight, this time on the occasion of the publication of Hahnemann’s “Chronic Diseases.” The disease became so much worse that Attomyr was almost dying but he saved himself with Sepia. Even the opponents were surprised at the cure which they had considered impossible. He now continued to visit the lectures assiduously, and he distinguished himself as one of the most capable students, but at his examination, on account of his marked leanings towards homoeopathy, he was excluded from further, studies at the Joseph’s Academy. He then went to Munich where h e obtained his qualification as Doctor of Medicine at the end of March, 1831. His restless zeal carried also to Hahnemann in Kothen city and being obliged to undergo another examination if he wished to practise Dresden, he returned to Austria where he first became physician-in-ordinary to Count Czaky of Zips in Upper Hungaria, and the practised in Lentschau and Pressburg. From here he wrote his lively “Letters on Homoeopathy” (Number I, 1833, Kollmann, Number II, and III 1833 and 1834, published by Kothen, both in Leipsic). This restless man, then, after a fever of typhoid character, took a post as physician to the Duke of Lucca on Dr. An ton Schmit’s recommendation; this post did not suit him well, but he found satisfaction in arranging the nature specimens of the Duke and laying our botanic garden for him. After three years he turned again towards Zips, to the Count Carl Czaky, and although building a house for himself there, he again returned to Pressburg and the whirl of the great city. But soon this bored him and he rented a small house near Vienna, but before moving into it he went to Pesth (1839) where he practised together with his former teacher Dr. Muller until 1844. His period of wandering was now over. Here he wrote his “Theory of Crime, Based upon the Fundamental Laws of Phrenology” (Leipsic 1842, G. Weigand), also a book on “Venereal Diseases, a Contribution to their Pathology and Homoeopathic Therapy” (Leipsic. T.O. Weigell). From the year 1845 onward he lived once more in Pressburg, keenly engaged in active practice, and died there on the 5th of February, 1856. Apart from an unfinished manuscript, “Primordials of a Natural History of Diseases,” Vol. I, “Brain and Spinal Column” (Vienna, 1851, W. Brau-Muller) he wrote also numerous essays for the German homoeopathic periodicals in that smooth style and with that elegant vivacity so frequently found among the a Austrians. The inward fire particularly noticeable in the writings of this youth unfortunately consumed his delicate constitution in the prime of life.
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann