It is not uncommon when patients first experience the dramatic healing of homeopathic medicine to want tell all their friends and family. Through the years, many converts to homeopathy have become “homeopathic evangelists” spreading the word about this amazing system of medicine.
One such convert was Constatine Hering, MD, the “Father of American Homeopathy.”
Hering was born in Germany in 1800 and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1830’s. He first approached homeopathy as a debunker, having been asked by his medical professors in Leipzig to write a paper condemning Hahnemann’s new medical system. In an honest attempt to do that, he repeated Hahnemann’s experiment with Cinchona bark and got the same results as Hahnemann. Hering was later cured of a potentially fatal dissecting wound with a dose of Arsenicum album, and he became one of homeopathy’s most ardent supporters and greatest practitioners. He wrote, “My enthusiasm grew. I became a fanatic. I went about the country, visited inns, where I got up on tables and benches to harangue whoever might be present to listen to my enthusiastic speeches on homeopathy. I told the people that they were in the hands of cut-throats and murderers. Success came everywhere. I almost thought I could raise the dead.”
Another skeptic who later became one of our greatest homeopaths was James Compton Burnett, MD. An illustrious British physician of the late 1800s, Burnett ultimately wrote 24 books about homeopathic treatment and was among the first to note that vaccines may trigger chronic illness. He likened his own conversion experience to that of St. Paul’s on the road to Damascus: he instantly resolved “to fight the good fight of Homeopathy with all the power I possess; were I to do less I should be afraid to die.”
There is a saying in many religious traditions—“saving one life is like saving the whole world”. From a homeopathic perspective “helping bring health and happiness to another soul can help to heal our world.”
Terry Pfau DO, HMD