In the above-mentioned essay, Doctor Crothers makes reference to between ninety and one hundred authors. Let us see how comprehensive a list of homoeopathic works one could select for a five foot shelf. Hahnemann, we are told by Bradford, gives in his article on Arsenical Poisoning no less than 861 quotations from 389 different authors and books, in different languages and belonging to different ages, and gives these references “accurately both volume and page.”
And Haehl informs us that in his Dissertation on the Helleborism of the Ancients he was “able to quote verbatim (and give the location of the passages concerned) from manifold German, French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic medical writers and he could examine their views – either in disagreement or in extension. He quoted from more than fifty more or less known doctors, philosophers and naturalists.” Such was the wisdom of Hahnemann!.
To return to our own homoeopathic classics. As the director of the Bureau of Publication of the American Foundation for Homoeopathy, I have frequently been asked to compile lists of Homoeopathic reference books which can be recommended for the use of the laity, for beginners in homoeopathy and for more advanced study. A partial list of such works was published in the Homoeopathic Survey for January, 1918, and in the Homoeopathic Recorder for April, 1931 will be found a paper read before the Foundation Post-Graduate Summer School on The Homoeopathic Library and How to Profit by It, which outlines in a general way the fundamentals of homoeopathic literature and their uses in the library of the homoeopathic physician.
In the lists of reference works on homoeopathy suggested for library and home study the textbooks were arranged in four groups as follows: Some forty to fifty or more works were listed on materia medica in Group I; Group II consisted of fifty works on homoeopathic philosophy; Group III, of some ninety or more works on the repertory; and Group IV, of some eighty or more works on therapeutics and homoeopathic practice. If we were to select from this list of three hundred or more works fifty volumes for our five foot shelf of homoeopathic classics we might well condense the above groupings about thus:.
GROUP I – MATERIA MEDICA
H.C. Allens Keynotes
Hahnemanns Materia Medica Pura
Herings Condensed Materia Medica
T.F. Allens Hand Book
Boerickes Pocket Manual of Materia Medica
Bogers Synoptic Key
Clarkes Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica (3 vols.)
Farringtons Clinical Materia Medica
Gross Comparative Materia Medica
Kents Lectures on Materia Medica
Guernseys Keynotes to Materia Medica
Hughes Manual of Pharmacodynamics
Wheelers Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Homoeopathy.
Chowdhuris Repertory (with the Materia Medica).
GROUP II – HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY.
Boenninghausens Lesser Writings
Clarkes Homoeopathy Explained
Closes Genius of Homoeopathy
Dunhams Homoeopathy, the Science of Therapeutics
Dudgeons Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Homoeopathy
Fincke on High Potencies and Homoeopathic
Grams Characteristics of Homoeopathic
Hahnemanns Organon (1st Edition, Everymans Library Edition and 6th Short Edition, Boericke)
Hahnemanns Chronic Diseases (Theoretical Part only) (translated by Prof. L.H. Tafel)
Joslins Principles of Homoeopathy
Kents Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy.
Kents Lesser Writings
R. Gibson Millers Outlines of Homoeopathic Philosophy
Wheelers The Case for Homoeopathy.
GROUP III – REPERTORIES.
Allens Boenninghausens Therapeutic Pocket Book
Bells Repertory of Diarrhoea
Bogers Boenninghausens Characteristics and Repertory
Fields Symptom – Register
Gentrys Concordance Repertory
Herings Analytical Therapeutics (Vol. 1 only one published)
Jahrs Repertory and the New Manual
Kents Repertory of the Materia Medica
Knerrs Repertory to Herings Guiding Symptoms
Lippes Repertory to the More Characteristic Symptoms of the Materia Medica
Lee and Clarks Cough and Expectoration
Shedds Clinical Repertory
Worcesters Repertory to the Modalities
Lilienthals Homoeopathic Therapeutics.
GROUP IV – THERAPEUTICS AND HOMOEOPATHIC PRACTICE.
Arndts System of Medicine
Baehrs Science of Therapeutics
Burnetts New Cure for Consumption
Carletons Homoeopathy in Medicine and Surgery
Cowperthwaites Text-Book of the Practice of Medicine
Deweys Practical Homoeopathic Therapeutics
Guernseys Application of the principles and Practice of Homoeopathy to Obstetrics
Jahrs Forty Years Practice
Nashs Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics
Pulfords Leaders in Pneumonia
Raues Special Pathology and Diagnostics
Royals Textbook of Homoeopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine
Schusslers Tissue Remedies.
It will be observed that in compiling even a five foot shelf of homoeopathic books, many well-known works must needs be omitted, owing to their bulk; as, for example, Allens Encyclopaedia, of ten volumes, and Herings Guiding Symptoms, likewise of ten volumes. Of the later sets of books it might well be said that no library could be considered complete without them, yet here we have listed only The Handbook and the Condensed Materia Medica. Bartletts three-volume work on Practice might well be included, as this is the latest work of its kind from the pen of a living author, and contains an up-to-date resume of the general field of medicine, including homoeopathic therapeutics.
There are countless smaller works, such as Burnetts classic monographs, Dudgeons Essays, bound volumes of Skinners Organon, Kents Journal of Homoeopathics, many of the essays of Clarke, Wheeler. Weir, Tyler, and other modern writers, which should find a place in the library of every homoeopathic physician. The above list and many not here mentioned are books which the homoeopathic physician cannot well do without. In case-taking, such works as Boger, Close, Kent, Nashs How to Take the Case and Find the Similimum, Bidwells How to Use the Repertory, Margaret Tylers Repertorizing and How Not to Do It, are of inestimable value. In the study of philosophy one should familiarize himself with all of Hahnemanns works.
He should should know Kent from cover to cover, and he can read with profit Joslin and Carroll Dunham, many of the essays and introductions of Hempel, and the lectures of Stuart Close. He must have read the Lesser Writings of Boenninghausen and the latters translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. He should know materia medica thoroughly, the materia medica of no fewer than one hundred remedies, should have a comprehensive knowledge of the thousand more which comprise the complete materia medica. He must have read such comprehensive works as Bradfords Life of Hahnemann, Haehls Samuel Hahnemann, His Life and Work, Amekes History of Homoeopathy, and be familiar with Bradfords Pioneers.
He must be more or less conversant with homoeopathic bibliography, he must be familiar with the Boenninghausen Method, the Kent Method, and with the use of different types of card-index repertories. He must be familiar with, and have in his possession, if possible, a varied collection of the works of the old masters, and bound volumes of early homoeopathic journals. Such an array, transcending to an immeasurable degree any five foot shelf of collected works, would constitute a comprehensive library for the studious and conscientious homoeopathic practitioner.
The student of homoeopathic classics, the bibliophile, the true connoisseur of Hahnemannian could never cease to wander amid the fascinating highways and byways of homoeopathic literature. The libraries of the pioneers of our art consisted of such an omnium gatherum. Many of these libraries have been in recent years bequeathed to our generation. Happy indeed is he, and fortunate, who is the possessor of such a literary armamentarium. Whenever possible, may each and every one of us gather together these literary treasures. For what a priceless treasure is a book, of whose possessor it has been so well said:.
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more than he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty.
A loosened spirit brings!.
BOSTON, MASS.
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.