THE ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE INTERNATIONAL HOMOEOPATHIC LEAGUE.
A Report by Dr. George Burford, Vice-President of the League.
Geneva the home of enthusiasms, International and National Geneva has added another laurel to her chaplet, in the public reception and recognition of the International League of the Minority cause in medicine.
It is obviously in the fitness of things that this corporate body of Homoeopathic physicians, meeting in annual assembly, should be received and welcomed in a city which from mediaeval times has taken heterodox scientists under the shadow of her wing.
The best brains in Homoeopathy were represented at the Assembly of the League, and the visitors received enthusiastic welcome and hospitality at the hands of Dr. Pierre Schmidt (the President) and Madame Schmidt, and the Homoeopathic physicians resident in Geneva.
It would be difficult to laud too highly the thoroughness and excellence of the arrangements made for the reception of their distinguished visitors by the President and his assistants. The spacious hall (lAthenee) selected for the Assembly, easy of access, gave dignity to the proceedings; the hotel appointments were chiefly concentrated at “La Residence,” which alone received during Congress over 70 members, and without overcrowding.
The intellectual drive, which began early each day and ended late, was tempered by such deviations as a luncheon at the Rotary Club; an Official Reception by the States-Council of Geneva at the Palais Eynard; a conducted visit to places of historic and civic interest in the city; and, later, an excursion on the Lake of Geneva to Lausanne where luncheon was provided by Dr. Nebel and his colleagues; followed by a visit to Evian, on the other side of the Lake.
True to the over lordship of Congress work, papers were read and debates proceeded en route coming and going; and as a special reward for virtue, an excursion by road to Chamonix, on the day following the conclusion of Congress. The Chamonix drive and the Montanvert visit constituted a red-letter day. The evening preceding, the farewell banquet had been given at the Palais Eynard, where a silver salver, engraved with the signatures of the Follows and Members, had been presented with acclamation to Dr. and Mme. Schmidt.
NOTABLES OF THE LEAGUE ASSEMBLY.
In such an International Assembly as this all the delegates are notables, yet certain there were who by virtue of their personalities shone with especial brilliance. Captain and chief of these was the President, DR. PIERRE SCHMIDT, whose individual dynamic activated and controlled the Assembly first, last and all the time. Mobile and dignified, of preternatural quickness in seizing points, this relatively young leader of men timed and tuned the debates of the day, while encouraging freedom of speech.
Again and again it was obvious that the Assembly was by no means of one mind; a sudden ripple of difference would sweep over the audience and as suddenly subside, the ebullition coming to nothing because tactfully ignored. And the constant stream of essay and debate would have sufficed a British Assembly for a month!.
Of the delegates, the personality of DR. JOHN WEIR throughout evoked a high degree of interest and equally of appreciation. Like the leader of the House of Commons it was not necessary for him to declare his mind every hour of the day, but when occasion required, his considered judgment was given with clearness and point. Notably was this observable in the discussion on the treatment of childrens diseases, when Dr. Weir closed the debate; and still more so in his address on the “Confirmation of the doctrine of Hahnemann,” delivered at the Open Assembly of the League on August 3rd.
As representing the United States was DR. EUGENE AUSTIN, one of the original Kentian circle, and of universal reputation as Professor of Homoeopathic Materia Medica in New York, who here gave welcome to his aforetime pupils.
DR. TUINZING of Rotterdam, one of the Foundation Fellows of the League, came with his colleague Dr. Voorhoeve of Utrecht, the author of Homoeopathy in Practice, as representatives of Homoeopathy in Holland. Dr. Tuinzing contributed to the Assembly an important paper on the publication of the League Transactions. DR. EDWIN NEATBY of London, well known the world over as Head of the Missionary School of Medicine at the London Homoeopathic Hospital, and as connected with every movement of importance in British Homoeopathy during half a century, and also Foundation Fellow of the League, brought his varied experience to the League Assembly for use and service.
Dr. Schmidt was introduced to the results of homeopathic treatment during the 1918 flu epidemic while living in London. There he met both J. H. Clarke and John Weir.
In 1922 he came to the United States and began his studies with Alonzo Austin and Frederica Gladwin, who had been a pupil of Kent's. He became the first graduate of the American Foundation for Homeopathy course for doctors. Returning to his native land he set up practice in Geneva, Switzerland. He was responsible for reintroducing classical homeopathy into Europe, teaching several generations of physicians, including Elizabeth Wright Hubbard.
Dr. Schmidt helped edit the "Final General Repertory" of Kent, and translated the Organon into French. In 1925, he was one of the main founders of the Liga Medicorum Homoeopathic Internationalis (LIGA).