SAMUEL HAHNEMANN AND HIS IMPRESS UPON THE WORLD


Hahnemanns eighty-third birthday was made the occasion of a great fete, and was celebrated at his residence, the Rue de Milan, where the large salon was crowded with guests, the beau monde of Paris, in the middle of which stood Hahnemanns bust, ornamented with golden laurel crown and wreaths of the flowers of Cicuta, Belladonna and Digitalis.


It certainly gives me great pleasure to respond to a toast upon this occasion–an occasion which, from its very nature, it seems to me, is one of the most memorable that it is within the privilege of our medical generation to enjoy–a Hahnemann Fest, or, as the Germans called it, a Hahnemann Fest-Jubilee. These jubilees, be it said, were very common in the later years of Hahnemanns life, beginning, if I mistake not, at the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation from Erlangen, which was held at Coethen, August 10th, 1829. Upon this memorable occasion, Hahnemanns friends gathered from all parts of Germany, and from many other places far and near, to do honor to the Grand Old Man of Homoeopathy.

He was presented with a jewel box by Stapf, inscribed in Latin: Hoffrath Muhlenbein, with a Latin address, presented a list of all the contributors to the occasion. Rummel presented him an honorary diploma from the University of Erlangen. The Duke and Duchess of Anhalt-Coethen, his patrons and benefactors, presented him with a gold snuff box with the letter “H” inlaid in brilliants, also a valuable antique drinking cup, with personal letters of congratulation. Out of this meeting grew the Central Homoeopathic Union of Germany.

It is recorded that every anniversary after 1829 was taken as an occasion for the friends of Hahnemann to show their mark of respect to his genius and service to mankind. In the year 1833 there was a special celebration at Coethen by the Society of Homoeopathic Physicians, when, according to Albrecht, deputations were received by Hahnemann from far and near.

Upon the occasion of the dinner, at which his Highness the Duke of Coethen was chairman, three songs adapted for the occasion were sung and received with great applause. The following day scientific sessions were held.

It will be remembered that it was this very year that Hahnemann had been notified of his election as a member of the Medical Society of the County of New York, a society composed of the leading allopathists of New York. It is well to note carefully the import of this honor, for, as was pointed out at the Centenary exercises of the Introduction of Homoeopathy into America last year, this diploma, which while rescinded finally by the Society on July 10th, 1843, was valid throughout the remainder of Hahnemanns life; and as his death occurred July 2, 1843, we are assured the Society could not have known of this fact. Samuel Hahnemann, therefore, died an honorary member of this allopathic society in far-away America.

On Hahnemanns birthday, April 10th, 1835, a short time before he married his young and accomplished wife and removed to Paris, he was elected honorary member of the board of directors of the North American Academy of Homoeopathy (the first homoeopathic medical college in the world, which was organized on this date), and from his wife, Madame Melanie dHervilly Hahnemann, received an honorary diploma a short time afterward.

In France, as in Germany, the 10th of August was still celebrated in 1836; and in Paris, on that date poems were read, of such distinction that one writer said of them: “Only upon Napoleon have we read odes which breathe equal heartiness and truthfulness of feeling and warmth of ardor”.

Hahnemanns eighty-third birthday was made the occasion of a great fete, and was celebrated at his residence, the Rue de Milan, where the large salon was crowded with guests, the beau monde of Paris, in the middle of which stood Hahnemanns bust, ornamented with golden laurel crown and wreaths of the flowers of Cicuta, Belladonna and Digitalis. The bust was the work of the celebrated sculptor, David, who designed the bust of Napoleon I, himself an ardent admirer of homoeopathy. As, upon previous occasions, poems of distinction were read in Italian and French, and delighted their audience.

On his eighty-fourth birthday and upon the sixtieth anniversary of his graduation from Erlangen, there were appropriate festivities. At the graduation exercises, all of the European nations sent their representatives.

His eighty-fifth birthday was marked by an assemblage of the elite of Paris in his salons to congratulate, as reported in the Leipsic press, “the aged Commander-in-Chief of our Homoeopathic Phalanx.” Upon this occasion there was a new statue of Hahnemann executed by Woltreck, of Dessau. It was at about this time that Hahnemann made his famous cure of the little daughter of the celebrated French poet, Legouve, which created such a stir in social and literary circles.

As a result of this cure Hahnemann was by some regarded as an almost mythical person, not as a being of real flesh and blood. The circumstances of this incident are well known to all who have intimate knowledge of Hahnemann and his great benefactions to humanity. Two interesting facts stand out above all others, one being the fact that, in his great love for his little one, the poet, fancying her about to die, had engaged his friend, Amaury Duval, one of M. Ingress most distinguished pupils, to paint the portrait of his dying daughter, In the midst of this painful and sad office, the parents were prevailed upon to send for Hahnemann.

With what a masterful, yet graceful authority, Hahnemann, upon his arrival, swept away all the powerful medicines with which the child was being tormented, and substituted the salutary regimen of fresh air, cold water and specific remedial, measures. And how quickly to the joy of the astonished parents, he announced to them: “Dear M. Legouve, your daughter is saved.” This from the personage whom the poet has described as follows:.

“In the midst of all the troubles that distracted my poor head, racked by pain and want of sleep, I thought I saw one of the queer people of Hoffmans fairy tales enter the room. Short in stature but stout, and with a firm step, he advanced, wrapped in a great fur coat and supported by a thick gold-headed cane. He was about eighty years of age; his head of admirable shape; his hair white and silky, brushed back carefully curled around his neck; his eyes were dark blue in the centre, with a whitish circle around the pupils; his month imperious; the lower lip projecting; his nose aquiline.” . . . Such was Hahnemann.

“When my daughter was cured, I showed him Amaury Duvals delicious drawing. He gazed long and admiringly at this portrait, which represented the resuscitated girl as she was when he first saw her, when she seemed so near death. He then asked me to give him a pen, and he wrote beneath it:

“Dieu la bene et la sauvee.

SAMUEL HAHNEMANN”. In 1840, one “Guancialis” wrote an epic poem in praise of Hahnemann, which was published in Naples, and contained eight books of Latin hexameters. This poem gives a history of the discovery of the law of similars, Hahnemanns inspiration by Sophia, the spirit of learning, and its introduction into the various lands of the earth. While the original is written in hexameters, the translation which was published in part in the British Journal of Homoeopathy, Vol. IV, and which I have personally examined, is couched in pentameters. This is probably the most exhaustive poem that has ever been written upon Hahnemann and Homoeopathy, and its author was anonymous.

On the 10th of April, 1841, the burgomaster of the city of Meissen, Hahnemanns birthplace, bestowed honorary citizenship upon him and presented a diploma to him through the Minister of Saxony, which are said to have been the best possible proofs of the considerations and esteem in which homoeopathy was held throughout the country.

The 10th of August of this year was also celebrated as usual, at which time poems were read by Drs. Calandra, of Palermo, and Sommers, of Berlin, in mark of their friendship, in their native tongues. Of this fete the brilliant Crosserio wrote:.

“The language of the country is the one least spoken, and I had the pleasure of conversing in Spanish, Italian, English and German. This is a centre where all nations unite in brotherhood, in sentiments of veneration for the illustrious founder of homoeopathy, and in reciprocal testimonies to the superiority of this doctrine over all others which have preceded it, being for the most part living proofs of that power to which they owe their health, and many of them their lives.

“What more potent answer to the great little men of the present day,” writes Bradford, “who just so often inform us what an old ignoramus Hahnemann was, than to invite them to picture themselves this scene of his declining years. The old man, with his fine intellectual face, his white hair curling on either side of his lofty brow, his manner filled with the enthusiasm and unrest of genius, surrounded by learned men of half a dozen countries, able to speak to each in his mother tongue.

Imagine this brilliant assembly, met to do honor to the most brilliant of them all. Here a sentence in English, there a soft Italian phrase, then some witty sentence in the diction of his fatherland, anon a Spanish question, again a witty French bon mot–Hahnemann answering each in his own tongue. The while Madame Hahnemann, the hostess, charming in her easy grace, giving to all a worthy welcome, and honoring the dear old man, her medical master and her beloved husband. And this in the brightest city in the world . . . As has been seen, all of the birthdays of Hahnemann were utilized to honor him. His life at Paris was one long fete”.

Benjamin Woodbury
Dr Benjamin Collins WOODBURY (1882-1948)
Benjamin Collins Woodbury was born August 13, 1882, at Patten, Maine. He was the son of Dr. Benjamin Collins, a homeopathic physician, and Matidle Albina (Knowles). He attended Patten Academy and received his M.D. from Boston University Medical School in 1906. Following graduation Dr. Woodbury began his practice in Lewiston and Winthrop, Maine, and in 1907 moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he practiced for the next nine years. Dr. Woodbury married Miss Gertrude Fancis O'Neill of Boston at Eliot, Maine on June 18, 1915.
In March, 1919, Dr. Woodbury left the Islands and located in San Francisco where he practiced for two years and then returned to the East and established a practice in Boston. He was a trustee and a member of the staff of the Hahnemann Hospital, Boston, and in 1947 was elected president if the International Hahnemann Institute, Washington, D.C. He also gave many lectures on homeopathy at Boston University and at postgraduate sessions of the American foundation of Homeopathy.
Dr. Woodbury died on January 22, 1948, in Boston at the age of 65.
The doctor was the author of "Materia Medica for Nurses", published in 1922 and of many articles in medical journals in England, India, and the United States. Dr. Woodbury was also a writer of plays and poetry.