The Life and Letters of Dr Samuel Hahnemann By Thomas Lindsley Bradford, M.D. Presented by Dr Robert Séror

The Life and Letters
of Dr Samuel Hahnemann
By Thomas Lindsley Bradford,
M.D.
Presented by Dr Robert Séror

Chapter 64.

Dr.

Puhlmann’s
account of Hahnemann’s
daughters

An article was published in the

Populaire
Zeitschrift, of Leipsic,
for July 1, 1893, entitled : (Leipziger
Populaire Zeitschrift fur Homoopathie. Leipsic, July 1, 1893. Dr.
Willmar Schwabe.)

“The Semi-Centenary Memorial of the Death of Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann, July 2,1893.”

In this the author, Dr.

Puhlmann,
makes plain several points heretofore uncertain. He evidently knows
whereof he writes.

After a short account of the burial he gives a biography of the master,
a fac simile of a letter, portraits of himself and his first wife and ends
the very entertaining sketch in the following manner :

” Glowing accounts of

Hahnemann’s
material prosperity in Paris
had naturally reached the ears of his children, though he never spoke
about the matter in his letters to them ; and his children might therefore
have hoped that they would some day receive a second inheritance from Paris.
So their disappointment was the more bitter after his death.

In an indisputable will Samuel

Hahnemann
had named his second wife his sole heir, and in this will he expressly
says that his children had already received their due inheritance in his
settling upon them the property which he had acquired up to 1835 ; so that
people cannot now impute to him a want of love for them on account of this
act of gratitude to the second partner of his life.

“The contentions of the

Hahnemann
family on account of this will have-lasted for many years, and Frau Mélanie
Hahnemann probably
insisted upon maintaining her rights because the children and their
friends seemingly attacked her only and meddled with nothing else.

In fact she did not give to the children her deceased husband’s
journals, which he had left behind in

Coethen,
with the express understanding that they were to be given to his children
after his death.

”
For the sake of preserving peace in the

Hahnemann
family, the writer of this article prevented this matter from coming to a
sensational scandal until thirty years afterwards.

The Seminary Director, Franz

Albrecht,
of Coethen,
had published in 1851 a biography of Samuel Hahnemann.
(” Christian
Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann. Ein biographisches Denkmal.” Leipzig.
Hinrichs’che Buchhandlung. 1851.)

The material for this biography had been given to him, a long-time
neighbor of the

Hahnemanns,
by the deceased’s daughters, Frau Dr. Louise
Mossdorf and Charlotte
Hahnemann.

Louise Mossdorf

Albrecht

, after
giving up the seminary, removed to Leipsic
and settled near the publisher of this Gazette,
so as to
expedite the publication of a new and enlarged edition of this biography,
which appeared in 1875 under the title ‘Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann’s des Begrunders der Homoopathie Leben und Wirken.
Leipzig. Schwabe. 1875.’

“Director

Albrecht
announced that Hahnemann’s
daughter Frau Dr. Mossdorf,
was very much interested in the publication of this new edition ; and, if
published, she offered to buy for cash five hundred copies. Her offer was
accepted and the printing was begun.

But the printing had to be interrupted ; for it was found that Director

Albrecht,
at the instigation of Frau Mossdorf,
had made intercalations in the former edition ; and these insertions had
turned the book into a sort of pamphlet against Hahnemann’s
widow, who was still living.

There were inserted in the book numerous attacks upon the widow, Madame

d’Hervilly Hahnemann,
and also various private letters not meant for publication ; and so the
work might be seized by order of the aggrieved party, and thus both author
an publisher might get into litigation.

“Director

Albrecht
was aware of this dilemma,( but thought that Madame Mossdorf
would not be likely to buy five hundred copies, if the inserted matter
were omitted.

Five signatures of the book had already been printed, and so I decided
to have a personal interview with the lady about the matter, for I was
acquainted with her and I believed that she would listen to any reasonable
remonstrances.

” I had been at the Hahnemann residence during the lifetime of her
sister (before 1863) and had been received with unusual courtesy.

The two ladies showed me, with the greatest pleasure, all the mementoes
of their deceased father. On my departure I even received from them a
small glass cylinder that had belonged to the deceased, some leaves from
the arbor in the small garden, where he spent so many of his leisure
hours, and a goose quill pen, with which he had once written.

This quillpen had no slit in the nib, and I could then readily
understand how

Hahnemann
had been able to write in so small and distinct a hand on the rough paper
then in current use, and on which we could not thus write with our steel
pens.

” Had I specially requested it they would certainly have given me
also a tobacco pipe which had belonged to the deceased. But I dared not
ask it, considering the several mementoes they had proffered me already.

” After the first ludicrous impression made upon me by the profuse
manifestations of civility shown by the ladies had been superseded by a
graver demeanor on my part, the devil tempted me to elicit from them the
same courtesies again, by making profound bows to them and giving them
assurance of the high esteem in which I held them ; and every time, to my
great delight, these were followed on their part by courtesies so low that
one might have thought the two ladies would sink into the earth.

They were both dressed in mourning, and they repeated these profound
courtesies at every bow and complimentary phrase from me, till I was at
length really embarrassed, for I was constrained to preserve a grave
demeanor and dared not laugh.

“

Charlotte
Hahnemann had died
before I called on Madame Mossdorf
to have this personal interview respecting the objectionable matter in the
forthcoming book. She received me at her residence in Coethen
in the presence of a servant maid.

As I entered the house I had explained to this servant the object of my
visit and she must have told her mistress. After the formalities of
greeting were over, which were profound bows on my part and still more
profound courtesies on hers, I endeavored to make her understand that so
censurable a work could not be published, even though she believed herself
to be in the right and all that was in the Albrecht manuscript should be
true ; and I said to her that most unpleasant relations might arise, both
for author and publisher, if such a work were published.

” But she was not to be persuaded in the matter, and she advanced
every reason and argument at her command to justify her purpose.

I heard from her lips things much worse than were in the

Albrecht
manuscript. I had to leave without having accomplished the object of my
visit, and my bow at departure was not even returned by her by even the
merest courtesy.

The portions of manuscript already in type, containing expressions of
feminine grudge that she had nursed for many a year, were laid aside and
left out of the book.

“For this reason the lady renounced the fulfilment of a wish that
she had harbored for a generation, in a letter written to Director

Albrecht
with the sharpest expressions of ill humor she had ever uttered, and in a
more effusive way, too, with the single exception of a long-winded
dedication that she had once furnished to a book.

” She has now been dead for a long time, and Frau

Mélanie
Hahnemann has departed
this life, as well as all the other persons named in this article.
Whatever of the suppressed portions of the Albrecht
manuscript could be made public without wounding the feeling of reverence
for the great founder of Homoeopathy, the curious reader will find
interwoven in this article.

“And, as was stated at the beginning, this article was meant to be
not a portraiture of the importance of

Hahnemann
to the mere science of Homoeopathy, but of his life and works viewed from
a purely human standpoint as a great benefactor to the human race.

”
And yet reflections on his two marriages, and especially upon the latter
portion of his life in Paris,
were not to be dispensed with because many erroneous views were formerly
current respecting this matter in Homoeopathic circles.

We know for certain that his second wife took him to her native land,
rendered more beautiful the evening of his life and assisted him in every
way in the most confiding and loving manner, till the hour of his death ;
whilst, had she been heartless, she would have left him to himself or else
in the hands of nurses.

So Jahr
related of her
that when Hahnemann
in his last days had violent paroxysms of pain in his breast she used to
console him and cheer him up and say to him that Providence owed him a
remission of his sufferings.”

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