Some unknow
facets and writing
of Constantine Hering.
By Calvin B. Knerr, M. D.
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
Dr Calvin B. Knerr
“Lives of great
men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime”.It appears to me to be
unusually appropriate, and significant, that the International
Association of strictly homœopathic physicians should hold its meeting
here, in Boston, the Athens of the New World where Homœopathy has
flourished from its earliest history in this country.It is here, that men
like the Wesselhoefts came to practice. One of these, the elder William,
was a pioneer, who had stood shoulder to shoulder with Hering at the
Allentown Academy, the first homœopathic college in the world, where
homœopathic literature had its beginning, where some of the earlier
textbooks, printed in German, were translated and published for the
benefit of its students. It was there that Wesselhoeft gathered the
seeds of sound doctrine which he later planted here in Boston, which has
borne fruit ; manifold and is still productive in the hands of his
successors.Among those pioneers,
the founders of the Allentown Academy, I am proud to name one of my
ancestors, a country clergyman of German descent, the Rev. John
Helfrich, who, like the honored Bœnninghausen, became a skilled amateur
in Homœopathy, which he practiced among his parishioners and friends,
and assisted in making provings and contributions to the literature of
those early days.I owe my affiliation
with my great teacher and honored father-in-law, which began directly
after my graduation from Hahnemann College, in the year 1869, to the
close friendship between Dr. Hering and my great uncle.
Dr C. HeringTo the few to whom it
has been permitted, by Providence, to have shared in the lives and
labors of great men, to have lived, walked and talked with them, shared
their intimacies and confidences, observed them in their daily tasks of
doing good in a great way, has been granted a privilege that cannot be
too highly estimated, nor too deeply treasured in both heart and mind.As I look back upon the
past from what must be near the summit of a long life, longer than what
is allotted to most men, I realize that the years in which I sat at the
feet of Hering were years of golden opportunity. From the moment of my
entering upon my duties as assistant to the great master, I began to
record in a diary the conversations of Dr. Hering, his table-talk, the
daily incidents that occurred in his busy life, his interviews with
other physicians of prominence, who came to consult or to be instructed
and entertained by the sage so widely known and respected. In the years
that followed, eleven in all, the book grew to a fair size filled with a
mass of daily notes of a kind that are calculated to interest the
followers of Hahnemann, and particularly the neophytes in Homœopathy. I
have in mind, to place before the public, and the profession, a volume
to bear the title. “Conversation and Philosophy of Dr. Constantine
Hering” in two parts to be followed by the “Lesser
Writings” from Hering’s pen, consisting of essays on Materia Medica
and Therapeutics ; provings and history of provings ; clinical
observations ; correspondence with eminent homœopaths of an early
period ; Hahnemann, Stapf, Jenichen and others in foreign lands as
well as that of a later period, letters from and practitioners in this
country : Allen, Dunham, Bayard, Bell, Berridge (of London) ;
Boyce, Bute (Hering’s student and predecessor in North America the one
who coped with the cholera in Philadelphia, before Hering’s arrival). P.
P. Wells, the Wesselhoefts, William and Conrad, and many more from
different parts of the world.
Dr Carroll Dunham
Dr Edward Bayard
Dr G. H. ButeFrom the manuscript of
the first volume. Conversation and Philosophy of Constantine Hering, I
have culled a few cases, hitherto unpublished, and some general remarks
to illustrate Dr. Hering’s method of practice.
CASE I :
Was that of Judge M., a
prominent member of the bar and the judiciary, unusually bright and
competent, who was born a hydrocephaloid. His head remained unusually
large in his earlier years until he came under the care of Dr. Hering,
who prescribed occasional doses of Calcarea-phosphorica in a high
potency. At intervals the boy with the big head, as his deformity was
corrected, required to be fitted, with a smaller, not a larger hat, as
is the custom with growing lads.
CASE II :
A young Cuban was
brought to Philadelphia for treatment. I was called in consultation with
some allopathic physician who had the case in hand. I found a young man,
with black eyes, a mere skeleton filled with air, unable to swallow a
morsel of food without vomiting it up directly after. He cursed at
doctors in general and swore that he would take neither, homœopathic
nor any other kind of medicine. I sent to the nearest confectionery shop
for some plain cream of which I ordered a teaspoonful to be taken, with
a little sugar every half hour. The patient took it. Next day he said he
had not vomited once. I then increased the quantity of cream to
dessert-spoonful doses, every hour. On the following day he complained
of severe pain in the stomach. I felt a large lump there the size of a
fist. This his physician had pronounced to be cancer. It was none. I
gave him two globules of Hyoscyamus
on the tongue. He had no more pain after this. I now ordered a
table-spoonful of beef tea to be taken on the one-half hour, and the
same quantity of arrowroot on the next half hour, turn about. The young
man kept on gaining weight steadily and in a short time he returned to
his island a well man. When he received my bill, in the amount of one
hundred dollars, he paid it promptly, at the same time telling me that I
was the most sensible doctor he had ever met, and at the same time the
most stupid, because he had expected to pay me no less than a thousand !
This patient recommended a great many others to me, from Cuba.Hering did not
contribute much of clinical material from his practice to our
literature. He made constant use of cases cured by others. In fact he
intended to write a book as soon as he could accumulate a thousand or
more typical cases. This book was not written.Hering never failed to
write down the symptoms of his patients at their first visit, and again
at future visits, for which purpose he carried with him a small
note-book to the bedside, and in his office he used tablets of
note-paper about three by four in size. While there had accumulated
stacks upon stacks of such notes, carefully arranged upon shelves, not
one of them could be completely deciphered to be of any use, not even by
those among us who were familiar with his handwriting. Other papers of
Materia Medica, though hard to read, are not beyond recovery. Since,
after his death, I am probably the only person living who can read the
papers, I have made it my business through the many years that they have
been in my possession, to rewrite, copy and translate most of them.
There is much material, all of it in ink which so far has withstood the
corroding influence of time. The paper, of the best, also holds well.
Good Lotzbecker snuff which the doctor used and let fall among his
papers and the leaves of his books, has preserved them from decay and
the ravages of the book-worm.
Dr J. E. StapfHering says both
Hahnemann and Stapf kept records of their cases in blank books, or
ledgers, in which a single page was devoted to each patient. Between
lines there was left room for remarks. The symptoms were numbered. After
each symptom were placed the marks signifying better or worse, as the
treatment progressed.Hering was the first to
condemn the giving of castor oil on the third day after child-birth,
which was almost universally done to produce a bowel movement with the
lying-in. He claims that the seventh day after child-birth is the
natural time for passage ; if it does not come then he advises a
dose of Bryonia, or Nux-vomica. We see with satisfaction that that
practice of purging is being largely ignored even by the ordinary
practitioners of medicine.
Hepar-sulphur :
Before the advent of modern surgery Dr. Hering fought off lancing
abscesses, which he thought bad practice, and unnecessary if Hepar,
in a high potency, were given to the patient. This suggestion came from
him as early as 1827, while in South America. At about the same time
Hartmann, in Germany, introduced Mercurius.
Dr E. von GrauvoglKali-nitricum :
A key note of Nitrum is :
Drinking often, but little at a time. The patient drinks but little at a
time because the act of swallowing interferes with respiration. Hering
says this is Grauvogl’s observation.Hering laid great
stress upon the following with a complementary medicine where the
previous remedy had ceased to be beneficial after waiting a reasonable
time, with a similarly acting medicine,
preferably one from another group, as for instance Belladonna after
Rhus-tox’. Pulsatilla after Nux-vomica in many variations.
The key to this will be found under Chapter 48. “Relationship in
Guiding Symptoms”, the Condensed Materia Medica, and in the
Repertory to these works.Certain remedies are
inimical and should not be allowed to follow each other closely, as for
instance : Phosphorus and Causticum
also Rhus-tox. and Apis ;
likewise Nux-vom. and Ignatia.
Only one of them can be properly indicated.
Aloes
has
its sphere of action in the pelvis. There is great congestion there,
with a feeling of fullness, as if everything was tending there.
Hæmorrhoidal tenesmus.Hering got the Arum-triphyllum.
(Jack-in-the-Pulpit) from an upcountry Pennsylvania German
who had it from an old woman, in one of the valleys of Pennsylvania.After a proving it
became valuable remedy in his hands for scarlet fever in its worst form.Hering was called to
see three children located in a basement on Cherry Street. The oldest
child was in the last stage of the sickness, evidently dying. The second
was in the second stage and very sick. The third had just begun to
sicken. He thought of the Pennsylvania German’s remedy, the Arum-triphyllum,
which he administered to each of the three children, in the
sixth dilution. All three recovered.The chief indications
for the remedy are soreness of the mouth, cracked lips and salivation.
He tried the remedy again soon after, this time getting an aggravation,
probably due to a lower potency ; higher ones were made use of
later.
Hamamelis
(witch hazel) was suggested to Hering by a consumptive at the point of
death, named Pond, who controlled his hæmorrhages with the quack
medicine, which he himself had introduced, and which made him rich, but
which he kept a secret. Hering thought if a substance can stop
hæmorrhages from a lung almost gone, it must be a good remedy.The consumptive had a
fair daughter who was impressed by the doctor. She revealed to him the
formula. Her father had planted acres with the witch hazel, had built a
distillery by which to extract the sap of the bush during the month of
February, when it is strongest, just before the flowering season, when
all plants are strongest in sap. Hering says if it had not been for
consideration of the daughter, he would not have had any time for a man
who discovered a healing remedy and guarded its secret for material
gain.Either everything is
chance or all things that happen are governed by laws ; otherwise
where would a line be drawn between chance and rule ?There are four kinds of
motion :1. Up and down.
2. From side to side.
3. Forward and backward, the motion of the rocking chair,
4. and the swing.The first is the motion
of health, liked by babies. The baby jumper is an excellent invention
for the nursery.The second is not
healthy, but not quite as bad as the third, which is most detrimental to
women and children, causing all manner of diseases with them. No person
can stand a rocking-chair in the long run.A fourth motion, that
of swinging around in a circle, is the worst of all motions.Hering believed (with
Swedenborg) that the nerves contain a gaseous substance which circulates
from the periphery to the centre through the sensory nerves, and from
the centre to the periphery through the motor nerves. In sleep this
current is reversed.Medicines placed upon
the tongue are there changed to a nerve-gas, which is transmitted to
diseased parts.This would explain the
lightning-like cures as mentioned by P. P. Wells and observed by others.
Hering wonders if the metals contained in a battery are dissolved,
disintegrated and thus pass on through the wires. He remarked, “Now
we have only the effects from copper and zinc. Other metals might come
into use.”The Rev. John Helfrich,
a lay practitioner, associated with the Allentown Academy, once
contributed a case to the Correspondenzblatt, a cure with Ipecacuanha
in which the patient had no symptoms of this particular remedy. Why did
he prescribe the Ipecac ?
Because a number of other patients with the same sickness, had gotten
well under it. He had stumbled upon the law of
treatment the genus epidemicus !
In cities we have not
the same opportunity to observe this as in the country.“If a wrong is
done, either from malice or from ignorance. Nemesis is sure to follow.
This would appear to be a law of nature.” Hering believed, with
Jean Paul Richter, that all things that happen, happen twice, the
duplicator of events. It would seem to be scarcely sufficient to close
these reminiscences of Dr. Hering without saying something about the
South American Lachesis. I will let
that sainted homœopath and skillful practitioner of other days. Dr. C.
W. Boyce of Auburn, New York, do the speaking. Dr. Boyce was an intimate
friend of Hering, who made several long visits to Philadelphia, where
the two spent days in each others society.I quote from an
Appreciation of Hering by Boyce, read at the Hering Memorial meeting in
1880 in which are There are laws that govern history as well as laws
that govern space, planetary movements. I hold to the belief that
history repeats itself and that everything happens in doubles. For
example, this morning I had a patient who had a strange symptom not to
be found in our Materia Medica. This afternoon there came another with
the same strange symptom. The symptom is : He is constantly
thinking of his sickness ; cannot get it out of his mind !“I was asked the other day whether it was not
very provoking, as well as discouraging, to meet with ungrateful
patients.“Ingratitude we
meet with everyday, said !. Our Lord and Master was covered with it.
Surely God has more cause to complain of ingratitude than have !.“Kepler, the great
German gastronomist, was a Protestant He with his family and friends had
to leave their possession in Austria on account of religious
persecution. He was followed by riders, sent out by the king, who asked
him to return. Kepler said : “If I go back my friends will
have to return with me !”“Kepler was once
asked how he could wait so long and so patiently for his theories to be
accepted and replied, “The Lord has waited a long time for people
to understand the harmony of His creation ! Why should I be
impatient ?” contained these remarks. Dr. Hering had named
Boyce the man who saved Lachesis.
This was after the bombastic and superficial Hempel had declared the
remedy “inert, in fact, no remedy at all”Boyce says :
“Often, as I came
to Dr. Hering’s house he would exclaim, Here comes the man who saved
snake, and how he took the poison and how he had proved it. We were to
go to the Academy of Natural Sciences together and see the original
snake.The name of Dr. Hering
is so closely associated with Lachesis,
in my mind, that when one is mentioned the other is almost sure to come
up with it, and to a great extent, with me, homœopathy depends upon Lachesis
for its glory.I had a case of typhoid
fever which had continued unchecked for twenty-one days. At this time
there seemed no chance for the patient to recover. Hope had been
abandoned, when, during the night following the twenty-first day,
Lachesis was given every two hours. Next morning, there was a complete
change for the better. The tongue was moist, the delirium greatly
lessened. From this time on convalescence progressed until health was
restored.This case was never
forgotten, but it was a long time before I saw another such result. It
came, however, in a case of gangrene. A woman discovered a small black
spot on the calf of her leg, which gave her a great deal of uneasiness,
and it rapidly increased in size. When I saw her, she was in bed, and
the spot measured three inches in diameter ; it was rapidly
increasing in size, and she grew sicker and sicker. Lachesis was given
and in a few hours the progress of the disease was checked. In a few
days the entire piece of flesh which was affected fell out, leaving a
hole reaching to the sheath of the muscles ; but this healed kindly
in a short time.Again followed a time
of professional drudgery, without striking results, when again I was
startled. A woman, who was nursing a child, was aroused at midnight by
the cry of fire. She had only time to grasp her child and rush out of
the house in her night-clothes. It was winter-time, and she went into
snow to her knees. She stood about in this undress until the house was
consumed before seeking shelter. The result was that she did not get out
of bed until the following summer, and then only by the help of
Lachesis, which, in nine days, not only took her out of bed, but set her
to doing her housework.In about another month
another great calamity seemed to be impending. My eldest daughter was
taken with diphtheria. It went on to the Croupy stage. This was at a
time when I had never seen a case recover in which the larynx had become
involved. The disease had first shown itself on November 1st, You all
know how this disease progresses, and how anxious we all are when we
have such cases to treat. This one progressed until the eleventh day,
slowly but surely getting worse, when I wrote to Dr. Hering, giving
minutely the symptoms and condition, saying that on the thirteenth day,
when I knew he would have the letter, I would telegraph the symptoms, if
the patient were still alive. This I did, and soon had the reply :
“Give Lachesis”.In December, 1863,
another claim came to me in my immediate family. To give a correct
account of this case I must copy it as reported at the time. “A
child of twenty-one months, with light hair, blue eyes and tight
complexion, took cold on Christmas day During the night of the 26th
there was fever and rapid respiration. At 11 A. M. on the 27th, the
child had a spasm lasting fifteen minutes. From this time until January
8th, there was continued fever, greatly increased at night, with a pulse
of 150. The respiration per minute were seventy on actual count, and at
no time less. Generally there was a red spot on one cheek, which
frequently changed sides. When one cheek was red the other generally was
pale. All of this time the left lung was impervious to air. Auscultation
revealed slight bronchial respiration but no vesicular murmur. The right
lung was not implicated ; there was constant cough, yet much
increased at night. The case had gradually, but surely, got worse, up to
January 8th, when the right lung began to be affected. On this day the
child became uneasy and restless, throwing itself about in all
directions and positions in its efforts to get breath. The face grew
dark, there was constant spasmodic cough with labored breathing, the
little thing in its agony striking at the mother for control. When it
fell asleep for a few seconds at a time the throat became so dry that a
condition resembling croup came on, and all the sufferings were
increased. This fearful condition was rapidly hurrying the little
sufferer to its grave. All the remedies prominent in similar conditions
had been given, including Lachesis 200, without result. At this juncture
Lachesis 12 (three pellets) was given, dry, on the tongue ;
immediately (the pellets had not entirely dissolved on the tongue) the
cough stopped and the breathing was relieved, for four hours. At the end
of this time the cough gradually returned with all of the sufferings (in
a diminished degree) when another dose of Lachesis 12 produced the same
decided relief this time lasting for sixteen hours. Four doses in twelve
hours so changed the condition that the child slept nearly all of the
night, and air passed freely again to all parts of the previously
obstructed lung.I consulted Dr. Hering
on one occasion with reference to a patient in whom I had an especial
interest (it being my other and better half), and after making a careful
and critical examination, he invited me to his private study to review
the case further, and proceeded to make an exhaustive investigation. His
manner of study, his thoroughness in analyzing a case (so in contrast
with many whom I have met in the profession possessed with more of
assumption than wisdom, who would deign to study a case only as a marked
exception) impressed my-mind forcibly as to the necessity of a thorough
and accurate knowledge of pathological conditions, symptoms, and remedy,
before prescribing. In the course of that investigation, he remarked to
me :“Let us apply the
triangular test, and if we find three important or characteristic
symptoms, pointing to one remedy, let me assure you that we can
prescribe it with almost unerring certainty. I have tested its
application in hundreds of cases, and when clearly defined, it seldom
fails to fulfil its mission”.As an aid to my
investigations, I have kept faithfully in view the illustration of the
triangle, the trinity of symptoms, in the selection of a remedy, with
the motto inscribed within the boundaries of its lines, and angles, so
appropriately expressed : “By this sign we conquer”.Friends, it requires
the highest order of both physical and moral courage, to risk life
calmly in trying to succor others. Witness the heroic act of a man alone
in a room, when all the attendants have fled, with a box he has just
opened containing the most venomous serpent, the largest of its species,
from whose glands after the most mature deliberation, he is about to
extract the deadly poison. See the nerve of the man, who, alert as is
the snake, seizes it just below the head with a firm grasp, when its
folds uncoiled, with reared head and flaming eye, forked tongue and
naked fang, it is anxious to strike the intrepid soul, who, at the risk
of his life, seeks from its venom the healing balm for earth’s
sufferers. Watch him adjust the pointed stick between the opened jaws of
the serpent whose bite is certain death, and whose impotent rage
secretes the deadly saliva, while he tantalizes it till it can distil no
more poison, when into a jar of alcohol he thrusts the monster nor
relaxes his grip of steel till life is extinct. The poison, caught till
on a watch-glass, is transferred to a mortar and rubbed with sugar of
milk, till his purple and bloated face, and swimming brain, suspend his
eager operation. He swallows the preparation with measured regularity to
produce upon himself the effects of the venom. (asking his wife to note
carefully all his symptoms). Observe him toss in his fever, note the
loquacious delirium as he flits from subject to subject, note the
suffocation, the frantic struggle for breath, while he clutches and
tears, from throat and breast, all clothing ; mark his mental
condition, the anguish and apprehension, and ask your selves for whom,
for what purpose he does this and then answer -is he not a hero ?Posterity may keep in
mind that a man like Hering, incomparable, eminent, totally unselfish,
lived and labored to the last breath of his life to establish a safer
and a better system of medicine for which science must forever be
beholden to him.I will close with a
question which possibly few, or none, of us present will be able to
answer offhand.Hering asks, “Who
were the first homœopaths mentioned in the New Testament ?”
The answer is given by St. Paul who in Acts, Chapter 14, verse 15, says,
“We are homœopathic,” the Greek word signifying of like
passions ; in German “æhnlich leidende !” of tike
suffering.Hering laughs and says,
“That is something the Old Man (meaning Hahnemann, whom he adored)
did not know”.
Source :
Homœopathy, 1938.
Copyright © Sylvain
Cazalet 2001
