On July 2d, 1843, Hahnemann died in Paris of a listening illness. He was buried in the cemetery of Montmartre near the grave of the poet Heine, among the poor of Paris. These arrangements were in accordance with the wishes of Madame Hahnemann, so that the wish of Hahnemann himself to have engraved upon his stone the words “non inutilis vixi” were never realized.
[The following year after Hahnemanns death, the idea of a permanent monument began to take shape. The design and management of this memorial were in the hands of Dr. Rummel, President of the Committee of the German Central Homoeopathic Association. The appeal for funds for this monument was a noteworthy one. It read in part as follows:].
“It is at once the glory and the misfortune of the great discoverer to be before his age; while it is the reproach and the safety of the age to be behind him. It was so with Galileo, with Kepler, and Harvey. And although the general unsettling of opinion, which occurred at the end of the last century, made men less averse to investigate novelties, and recognize truth in new systems, this arose more from prevailing confusion, than extending charity. . . . The ambassador of a great truth, which threatens mighty changes, and perplexes the minds of men, is looked on still as the herald of war, as the troubler of mankind, who is to be stifled, if he cannot be silenced.
Such was the fate of Hahnemann. He fought his lonely way for a many a dark night, without human encouragement and support. And the proclamation of his discovery, was the signal for his persecution. His steady and starlike course is now run.” (British Journal of Hom., Vol. 2, 1844.).
I should like also to quote from Dr. Eugene Austins report of the “Eighth Quinquennial Congress of Homoeopathy: a Monument to Samuel Hahnemann” (Homoeopathician, Vol.1, No. 1, Jan., 1912):
“Last September, we stood at Hahnemanns tomb, in Pere la Chaise, Paris, France. A broad shaft, winged toward the base, forms the solid background for the noble bust. Above is inscribed, in large deep letters, the legend, HAHNEMANN, FONDATEUR DE L’HOMOEOPATHIE, and the dates. On each side of the pedestal are tablet memorials of his great achievements. On the base is inscribed SOUSCRIPTION INTERNATIONALE.
“In the name of the host of his American followers, with my grateful patients, we covered his grave with choice roses. On the ornamental cap of one wing of the shaft hangs a large permanent wreath, which was presented by several French homoeopathic physicians. To the other side I lifted a sweet child–yes, a beautiful little girl, healed, when all other help had failed,by the use of Hahnemannian Homoeopathy. With loving hands and grateful heart, she placed over it a corresponding wreath–all speaking words of praise of him whose sacred dust rests beneath. I thought of teachers and comrades and patients at home, and for their sakes also, I laid my tribute, with tender emotion, on the grave of Samuel Hahnemann”.
It is interesting to note that Hahnemanns famous motto is engraved, along with other well-known inscriptions, upon the exquisite bronze and granite monument by Niehaus, in Scott Circle, Washington.
On the 10th August, 1843, the great master having departed this life, a festival was held as usual, at which, in accord with the usual custom a poem was read; this time by his friend, Dr. Rummel, which was a sonnet in German, enscribed: “An Hahnemann,” which begins with these lines:
“Du willst schon schlafen, muder Wahrheitspflueger?
Des neuen Lichtes Strahlen rothen kaum.
Der alten Nachte tiefsten Wolkensaum.
Und Deine freunde schleichen trag and trager”.
So distinguished was this poem that it was translated into all the languages in the different countries where the death of Hahnemann was reported. So ended the earthy life of Samuel Hahnemann. I have dwelt thus exhaustively upon these various anniversary and birthday festivals of Hahnemann by reason of the fact that these two dates, that of his birth and his graduation from the University, have been the pivotal points around which so much of the activities connected with the public observance of his service to mankind has centred.
It is a fact that Hahnemanns birthday still remains the date of choice for similar celebrations, even to the present time; as, for example, witness this very date that your Society has chosen for this dinner in Hahnemanns memory. I might remind you, furthermore, that the birthday of Hahnemann is set apart in the State of California and observed by the members of the California State Homoeopathic Society by contributing (in so far as is possible) all the earnings of the individual members on this day as a permanent fund for the perpetuation of homoeopathy. I have already mentioned the fact that the Academy at Allentown was organized on this date, and the American Institute of Homoeopathy had its birth, April 10th, 1844, with Constantine Hering, of Philadelphia, as its first president.
I should like to say a word, however, regarding the confusion of dates, as to whether April 10th or April 11th is the correct one to observe. Basing my proofs upon Bradfords life and letters, I had for long believed the correct date to be April 11th. Dr. Richard Haehl quotes Hahnemann to the effect that he was born before midnight on the 10th, rather than after midnight on the 11th. With regard to this matter, I may call to your attention the following note from the British Journal of Homoeopathy (Vol. 13, page 525), where we are told that the question of the 11th of April was raised by the testimony of Dr. Hirschel, in Zeitschrift, 1851, in which reference to the baptismal records of Meissen was said to have been shown that Hahnemann was born on the 11th of April, his baptism having occurred on April 13th.
He was entered there as Christian Friedrich Samuel, whereas the school register where he first attended gave his name as Christian Gottfried Samuel. His biographers had previously given his name as Samuel Christian Friedrich. This latest authority gives it as Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann. In this Bradford concurs, yet the 10th was the date always mentioned by Hahnemann, and was the date on which all his birthday festivals were held.
When we come to the consideration of Samuel Hahnemann–the man himself and his impress upon the world–we must first of all view him as an historical figure, and therefore in perspective. Could any one of us have lived in those stirring and eventful days when homoeopathy was young, when Hahnemann was himself in full vigor, we might better comprehend the task that beset this great adventurer in the uncharted paths of medical mediaevalism. It seems almost astounding to us, who go about with our small cases of carefully arranged and cared-for homoeopathic vials, without odor, taste, or color, acceptable to the taste and temperament of even the crabbiest child.
It seems almost incredible to us to believe that this great revolution in medicine has all come about since Hahnemann first announced his New Principle and published his famous letter to Hufeland. But the wise Hufeland himself was not unmindful that here at last there had come, out of the mists and chaos, a mariner who should lead the world to new discoveries and to lands before unknown.
Hufeland, whose acquaintance with Hahnemann was, as he said, “of long standing, and who, connected with him for more than thirty years by ties both of friendship and of letters valued him always as one of our most distinguished, intelligent and original medical men.” . . . “I had subsequently the opportunity,” he continues, “of observing many instances of good results from the use of homoeopathic remedies, which necessarily drew my attention to this subject and convinced me that it ought not to be contemptuously pushed on one side, but deserves careful investigation.”
This, the statement of one who was called “The Nestor of German medicine”; from one who was an eyewitness to the origin, development and progress of the whole movement. Again let us hear the testimony of one who, leaving his native American soil, in those days when to announce oneself as a follower of Hahnemann spelled anathema. I refer to that veteran editor and pioneer in homoeopathy, Dr. Gerald Hull, for many years the editor of the Homoeopathic Examiner, the earliest of our published American journals.
“The American homoeopathist,” he wrote, “besides his mere pleasure of travelling, has a sacred and unwearying pilgrimage to perform, not to the mausoleums of the departed, but to the sanctuary of a living genius. The authors of most reforms have hallowed them by death; but Hahnemann, whom a venerable senectitude of fourscore and seven years personalities as their type, more fortunate than they, has lived to witness his system pass triumphantly through the ordeal of prospective persecution, and is now blessed in the autumn of his life, with the vision of its elevation to a brilliant distinction, constantly progressive, and as exalted as its dispensations are prolific in happiness to the countless victims of medicine and disease”.
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.