An obstinate, chronic inflammation of the eyelids, which had for years defied the mercurial and other salves of the dominant school of medicine, induced my father to seek aid from that veteran homoeopath of New York City, the late Edward Bayard, whose office, with its atmosphere of culture and quiet dignity was in Fortieth Street, opposite Bryant Park and the old Croton Reservoir, later to be torn down and stripped of its Egyptian columns, to make way for the building of the New York Public Library. Good old Doctor Bayard had given up the law, with its vagaries and technicalities, for the philosophy of Hahnemann, which he followed to the letter throughout his entire medical career.
He came from the distinguished family of Delaware Bayards, urinal originally Huguenots, sans peur et sans reproach, who had migrated to America during the early Colonial times in order to escape persecution at the ruthless hands of the French Catholics. My father became one of his most devoted patients, to whom the doctors word was law and I well remember that for years my father suffered the highly unpleasant inconvenience of impacted cerumen in one of the canals of his ears, which Doctor Bayard would not remove, in the firm conviction that the similimum must and would accomplish this highly desirable result.
Of course, the wax refused to budge and not until the death of the old doctor, was the offending foreign body ousted by a clearer thinking successor, not however, without the protestations, misgiving and serious doubts of my faithful father, whose implicit confidence in his trusted medical adviser could not be easily shaken.
In this bureau drawer, my father kept a small, ornate mahogany box, which contained in orderly array, thirty-six small Bohemian- glass vials of homoeopathic potencies, all in the 200th, pretty to gaze upon with silent and respectful awe. As a boy I was intensely fascinated by this neat little cabinet, and it was not long before I had familiarized myself with the names and more obvious uses of the various remedies, in minute pellet form, contained within the attractive little bottles.
Thus Nux vomica became quite a boon companion, for I rapidly learned its astonishing value in the many simple ailments of daily, domestic life; Arnica soon became a friend in need, to be relied upon for its kindly ministrations in many a bump and bruise. My natural boyish curiosity led me to explore still further the forbidden precincts of my fathers room and I was rewarded in my clandestine search, by finding that gold mine of household medical information, Herings Domestic Physician, whose pages held me spellbound, with their accounts of the marvellous benefits to be derived from the administration of homoeopathic medicines in suitable circumstances and cases.
I soon absorbed with eager facility the indications for the use of most of the thirty-six remedies and forthwith commenced to put my knowledge to the test by practical application upon man and beast. Simple head colds seemed to vanish as if by magic under my doses of Allium cepa, Arsenicum album, Nux vomica and Pulsatilla, and even my cat and dog, upon occasion, gave mute testimony to the efficacy of Homoeopathy. As time went on and my schooling progressed, I eventually found myself in the School of Arts of one of our large colleges, impatient however, to being the study of homoeopathic medicine, which I did after two years of academic study, chiefly of English composition, literature, Latin and Greek.
Mathematics was my mortal enemy and my inability to master the intricacies of trigonometry and conic sections, imposed upon me by fossilized old pedagogues, finally decided me to take up the study of medicine without further delay. I had been impressed by my father and more particularly by his physician and the successor to Doctor Bayard, the late Clarence C. Howard, M.D., whose son is today the Roentgenologist of Flower Hospital, in New York City, with the truth, simplicity and beauty of Hahnemanns philosophy, and anything in medicine which departed from the founders founders dicta and injunctions, seemed to me to partake of disloyalty and even treachery of the highest degree.
It was, therefore, with much astonishment, when, soon after my matriculation in the New York Homoeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital, I listened to unorthodox teachings and pronouncements from the lips of some of my professors. To me it was a distinct shock, which took years to overcome, when I heard from many of my fellow students, disparaging remarks and even gross ridicule of homoeopathic principles. As a student of homoeopathic medicine I could not understand the attitude of incredulity assumed by those who supposedly had come to the fountain-head of Hahnemannian learning and wisdom.
That teachers and leaders of homoeopathic doctrine and thought should prove false to their trust was in my eye an unforgivable crime and it was, therefore, natural for me to focus my attention upon those of my teachers who were true to the faith and to ignore, as far as practicable, those who, in my opinion at least, were renegades and traitors. The necessity for obtaining in passing the final examinations of men for whom I had, in reality, scanty respect.
These college years, 1894 to 1896, for I had spent my first year in another medical college, revealed a number of truly great and devoted men. Well do I remember the lovable, kindly presence and personality of that vast storehouse of materia medica, Timothy Field Allen, upon whose every word a few of us students literally hung with breathless interest. Allens lecture upon Mercurius, without notes or textual aids of any sort, was a most instructive and impressive dissertation.
He fixed Mercury so well in my mind that his lecture has never been forgotten to this day. There was nothing theatrical about Allen, his manner was unassuming, his pose intimate and simple, his pronouncements kindly and convincingly made, he talked materia medica as though he were telling an interesting story, and when he had finished his hearers, who had come to learn, though skeptical, perhaps, in the beginning, believed.
In the study of the disease of children, Martin Deschere stood out and still remains vividly in my memory, a studious, earnest, painstaking man of conviction, whose fund of knowledge was large indeed. His indications for the use of homoeopathic remedies in the disorders of childhood were always precise, full and exact. He was a physician of large heart, of lovable character, generous of his time, always desirous of furthering a knowledge of the truth of homoeopathy, in which he implicitly believed.
His disposition was a sensitive one, easily hurt and wounded. Curiously enough, during his earliest years of practice in Hoboken, New Jersey, my father came to his rescue, during a period of petty and wholly unjustifiable persecution by the allopathic physician of that city. As a lawyer and a member of the New Jersey State Legislature, my father was able to do homoeopathy a real service of considerable importance, a fact which was gratefully recognized by the New Jersey State Homoeopathic Medical Society of those early days. In later years, that devoted champion of homoeopathy, the late Wallace McGeorge of Camden, gave me an account of my fathers successful efforts in preventing unfavorable legislation against the homoeopathic physicians of the State.
The Beau Brummell of the College faculty was beyond question that striking, handsome and distinguished surgeon, William Tod Helmuth the first. Well do I remember him as he used to enter the senior lecture room, clad in a Prince Albert coat, silver-gray checked trousers and a red carnation in his coat lapel. With his silvery gray hair and beard, his handsome countenance and the forefinger of his right hand raised in solemn attitude of command, he was a most impressive figure, as was attested by the rapt attention accorded him by the student body. There was always a merry twinkle in his eye, denoting a keen sense of humour and an appreciation of a good joke.
I recall when, upon one occasion, during his customary preliminary class-room quiz, with unheld finger and mock solemnity he approached the least brilliant member of our class and in dramatic voice thundered forth: “Now, sir, tell me the definition of a lipoma!” And then hapless senior, in obvious confusion and with scarlet countenance stuttered miserably: “Yes, sir, a lipoma, sir, is a tumour of the lip!” After which, life was made agonizing by his fellow, for this unfortunate medico. Helmuth was an orator, possessed of a nice perception of the value of theatrical effects. His surgical clinics were marvels of dramatic staging and would do credit to a Max Reinhardt or a David Belasco.
On one occasion, surrounded by his white-clad assistants and immaculated nurses of serious mind, he held forth to a large audience of spellbound students, seated in the old surgical amphitheatre of Spellbound students, seated in the old surgical amphitheatre of Flower Hospital, upon the technic of amputation of thigh. In his right hand gleamed a brightly polished catlin, held menacingly before him, for all the world suggestive of a buccaneer of old, sword in hand, about to board some helpless, peaceful merchantmen. Breathless, we students craned our necks, with eyes intent, waiting for the fateful strokes of his keen bladed knife, about to do its gruesome work.
American Homeopathy Doctor.
Rabe graduated from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and trained under Timothy Field Allen and William Tod Helmuth.
Rabe was President of the International Hahnemannian Association, editor in chief of the Homeopathic Recorder, and he wrote Medical Therapeutics for daily reference. Rabe was Dean and Professor of Homeopathic Therapeutics at the New York Homeopathic Medical College.