The passing off Dr.Cyrus M.Boger, on September 2, 1935, brings to all followers of Hahnemann everywhere a sense of irreparable loss. To the members of the I.H.A., who have been in close fellowship with Dr.Boger during the annual conventions, this loss is the deeper because of their dependence upon his homoeopathic wisdom through personal contact. Here, in his brief but pithy essays that provoked healthy and constructive discussions, and in his discussion of other papers, his great store of homoeopathic knowledge, his comprehension of homoeopathic philosophic philosophy and the materia medica, and his ability in prescribing, have been thoroughly exhibited, and he has been rightly looked upon as having attained a position in the knowledge and art of homoeopathic practice that few have ever occupied.
Dr.Boger has become widely known through his considerable contributions of homoeopathic literature, in his monographs on remedy provings, his repertory constructions, and other original writings which he was published from time to time or that have been published with his permission in The Recorder, the I.H.A. Transactions, or other homoeopathic publications.
Other valuable additions to homoeopathic literature have been those translations of the works of Boenninghausen and other writers, most notably German, which have been made available through the tireless application of this worthy follower of Hahnemann.
Dr.Boger will long be remembered for his profound learning in medicine, for his knowledge of pharmacy, and for his contributions to Hahnemannian homoeopathy-H.A.R.
THE SUMMER SESSION OF THE POST.
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAN.
FOUNDATION FOR HOMOEOPATHY.
The fourteenth annual session of the summer school of the American Foundation for Homoeopathy was held in Boston, from July 9th, 1935, to August 16th, 1935, at the Stuart Club in the Fenway, the educational section being located as former years at the School of Fine Arts, at 234 Beacon Street, where the cool waters of the Charles River basin lave the historic shores of Bostons aristocratic Back Bay. As in previous sessions, the three-fold plan of teaching in philosophy, materia medica and therapeutics through the mediumship of lectures, repertorial conferences and hospital clinics was utilized in the teaching of Hahnemanns incomparable doctrines.
This years session was marked by a fine spirit of unity between the students and faculty: “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear”! Thus are the Hahnemannian precepts nurtured into fruition. While the number of students was not large, the group was marked by that exceptional quality-that stuff from which the future homoeopathician is made. In fact it becomes increasingly more evident that it is to the post-graduate school of the American Foundation that we must look for the perpetuation of homoeopathy of this side of the Atlantic.
Among those present at the summer session were two senior students at Hahnemann Medical college and a graduate of the Womens Medical College in Philadelphia. Clinical teaching was made available at the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital through the Director of the Post-Graduate School, Dr.Ray W.Spalding. Teachers at the summer term were Dr.H.A. Roberts. DR.Julia M.Green, Dr.Ray W.Spalding, Dr. Eugene Underhill Jr.Dr.Elizabeth Wright Hubbard, DR.C.A.,Dixon, Dr.H.R.Edwards, and Miss Annie C.Wilson, who gave special instruction in the use of the Boenninghausen repertory.
It may be said that the success of the years school is a tribute to the intellectual prowess, self-devotion and sacrifice of these able instructors.
The closing exercises of the school were held in connection with a dinner at one of those are remote roadside hostelries. which the educational committee of the faculty are so happy in seeking and finding out. This time Le Directeur hit upon the idea of conducting the members of the school faculty, the students, and invited guests to the early American period, and the particular local was in the historic town of Whitman at the Toll House, built in the year 1709, on the road between Westbrook and Joppa, and owned by a private corporation during the days when the whaling industry was at its height in New Bedford. This house was used as the toll house for this road and here the passengers ate, horses were changed and toll was paid.
(Be it observed that all this took place prior to what has recently been known as the depression). Many interesting tales are told of this old tavern, which has in recent years been turned into a most hospitable and picturesque inn. Here the Foundation assemblage convened.
The early part of the evening was most pleasurably spent in listening to the amusing “quips and cranks and wanton wiles” evolved from the amazing brain and facile pen of Dr.Elizabeth Wright Hubbard.
It is interesting that among the fathering were residents of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., and Montreal, Canada.
After a dinner that might well do credit to the chefs and vintners of Revolutionary times, Dr.Spalding as toastmaster called first upon the members of the student class, who responded to the poetic effusions of Dr.Wright Hubbard. Dr.Earle emphasized the contract between the quasi-dramatic parade of the laboratory and the surgical amphitheatre of the modern medical school with the sincere and complacent efficiency in presentation of the simple but illuminating teachings of homoeopathy. Dr.Davis responded likewise in fitting remarks. Dr.Harris eulogized the knowledge required by the efficient instructor in the principles of homoeopathic materia medica and philosophy.
Dr.Dixon, speaking for the faculty, commended the spirit of unity that had prevailed between students and instructors during the present summer course.
Dr.Woodbury was called upon to give an estimate of the students and faculty from the standpoint of one who had at one time been an active participant in the personnel of the Foundation. He mentioned in particular the interest he had found in homoeopathy in Florida and on the pacific Coast, where he had spent the past three years. His impression was always that the Foundation represents the one real hope for the teaching and dissemination of pure Hahnemannian principles.
He mentioned, furthermore, that with the bright prospects for the future, and available endowments already in sight we might well envisage a teaching centre in Boston, centered around a hospital comparable to the far-famed London Homoeopathic Hospital, which already encompasses its endowed lecturerships, research commissions and missionary school. He congratulated both faculty and students upon that fine sense of unity that characterizes the spirit of Hahnemann and homoeopathy here and all over the world.
Dr.Edwards spoke with pride of his early study at the School of Homoeopathics with Dr.Kent in Philadelphia, and of his association with the teaching personnel of the Foundation, and read some original lines constituting a “Dream of Homoeopathy.”.
Miss Wilson gave a humorous resume of the hypothetical symptoms in a susceptible (?) individual from the ingestion of such a repast as this old phalanstery afforded.
Dr.Wright Hubbard, with her unsurpassed and poetical genius, told of an old Mohammedan legend of the string of one hundred beads; the first thirty-three dedicated to the praise of Allah; the next thirty-three dedicated to patience in the practice of the precepts of Allah; the next thirty-three dedicated to obedience; and the last bead shall be nameless forever ! So, in the practice of homoeopathy, might there be said a similar prayer for the first one hundred successful cases; and the last- may it be nameless forever !.
Dr.Roberts, as Chairman of the Foundation, expressed his pleasure in the culmination of another successful year-the fourteenth, since the inception of the summer school idea, as it has been carried out in reality. Having been for a long period in touch with the progress of homoeopathy throughout the world, it seemed to him that this school might well be said to have reached a well-deserved measure of success. The American Institute of Homoeopathy has for some years past conducted a post-graduate summer session (which had its beginning subsequent to that of the American Foundation), but here the teaching is not by any manner of means confined to exclusive Hahnemannian principles.
A similar idea as that embodied in the plan of the Foundation School was recommended recently for adoption by the proposed college to be established in Cleveland. But here again, unless the teachings of pure homoeopathy are strictly adhered to, the Foundation School will still remain the only institution in this country maintaining the high standards demanded for the perpetuation of Hahnemannian principles.
There has recently been made available, through the generous gift of a patient of Dr.Henry L. Houghton, the sum of five hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting a hospital, in which will be provided ample room for the housing of the Foundation School: and it is hoped to make the course a yearly one, instead of merely a summer school as heretofore. Land for this Hahnemann Hospital of Boston has already been purchased. Aside from this munificient endowment, other legacies are in the offing, which if secured will make for the establishment in Boston of a great institution for the perpetuation of homoeopathy.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies