Sue Young Homeopathy

William Boericke 1849 - 1929 was a Professor of Homeopathic Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the Hahnemann Hospital in San Francisco for thirty years.

Boericke was a prolific writer and his text books are standard fare for modern homeopaths.

Eminent U.S. homœopath, William Bœricke was born in Austria, on November 26, 1849. He studied for one year at the Vienna Medical School, before immigrating to the United States and settling in Ohio.

He graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia in 1880. Soon afterwards he moved to San Francisco where he worked as a homoeopath for more than fifty years.

He was co-founder of the Pacific Homoeopathic Medical College of San Francisco and Hahnemann Hospital in 1881. This was incorporated into the University of California, where he became the first Professor of Homoeopathic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, a post he held for thirty years.

In 1901 he published his Homœopathic Materia Medica. It went through nine editions ; his brother Oscar added a repertory to the book in 1906.

William Boericke moved to San Francisco in 1870 to take over the Boericke and Tafel pharmacy.

The Boericke and Tafel pharmacy was founded by Francis Edmund Boericke (who graduated from the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania) and Adolph J. Tafel in 1853 on the encouragement of Constantine Hering.

By this time there were over 2400 homeopathic physicians in the United States with over 700 in New York and over 325 in Pennsylvania. Keeping pace with the continuing growth in the practice of homeopathy, Boericke & Tafel established pharmacies in New Orleans, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Chicago and Cincinnati in addition to the two in New York City and Philadelphia.

Boericke & Tafel has an equally distinguished record as publishers. They were responsible for issuing over a hundred titles, approximately eighty-five percent of all homeopathic books published in the United States, including the American Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia, the sixth edition of Hahnemann’s Organon of Medicine (translated by William Boericke), and Boericke’s Materia Medica with Repertory, which is today the standard U.S. materia medica and an integral part of most homeopathic computer repertorization programs.

William Boericke graduated from the Philadelphia Medical College in 1876 and from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia in 1880.

He was editor of the California Homoeopath and co-founder of the Pacific Homoeopathic Medical College and Hahnemann Hospital in 1881.

In 1901 he authored Boericke’s Materia Medica. His brother Oscar added a repertory to the book in 1906. This ‘pocket manual’ finds its way into almost every homeopath’s library. It is a concise guide to hundreds of remedies, some of which appear nowhere else. Many a homeopathic professional has depended on this work for daily practice.

Along with Willis Alonzo Dewey he wrote The Twelve Tissue Salts, published in 1888.

From 1880-1920 Dr. Boericke was the physician of choice in San Francisco. Consequently, his family belonged to the ‘high society’ there. In fact, patients came from all over the world to be treated by him homeopathically.

He was a hard worker and his family was devoted to him.On April 1, 1929 he died of a massive heart attack. A few months before, he had developed angina symptoms after racing his son down Tamalpais Avenue. For a man in his late 70s he was still physically active.

Two months after he died, his house burned down. All that was left was the stone fireplace and all of his homeopathic books.

In addition to the above, Boericke also wrote A Compend of the Principles of Homœopathy as Taught by Hahnemann, The Treatment of Disease with the Twelve Tissue Remedies Being a Treatise on … , and The Care, feeding and homoeopathic treatment of children.

Oscar Boericke wrote The Homeopathic Repertory.

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