Sue Young Homeopathy

Charles W Luther was the first homeopath to introduce homeopathy to Ireland in 1839. In 1848, Charles W Luther and the Sisters of Mercy had instituted a Homeopathic Hospital in Dublin with sixty beds for the treatment of the poor.

The first English translation of the Organon was done by Charles H Devrient and edited by Samuel Stratten in Dublin in 1833.

The Irish Homeopathic Society was founded on April 10, 1845. A book published in 1848 lists 40 members of the Committee of the Irish Homeopathic Society and three medical attendants of the Homeopathic Institution: Charles W. Luther, G A Luther and William Walter.

In the 1895 Homeopathic Medical Directory we find two homeopaths in Ireland. By 1930 the number rose to four. The Irish Homeopathic Society was (re) formed in 1990 to represent the professional homeopaths in Ireland. In the mid 1990s there were almost 30 physicians using homeopathy in Ireland, 89 professional homeopaths on the Society Register, and an unknown number of lay prescribers.

In 1835, Charles W Luther wrote an essay which was included in John Epps‘ Homeopathy and Its Principles Explained.

In 1852 Charles W Luther wrote:

Luther also writes regarding this bust, as follows: I have just seen last week’s Homeopathic Times, and hasten, both for the sake of the credit of Homeopathy and as a mater of pious duty towards the memory of our great and good master, to correct the erroneous impression which your correspondent in your last number seems to have received with regard to the person of the name of Hahnemann, who was in Dublin in 1823.

This personage was not the ” great Hahnemann ” himself, but his only son, Frederick Hahnemann, a man of a certain amount of talent, but very eccentric in his opinions and conduct. When shortly after the appearance of the ” Organon.” Hecker criticized the new doctrine with great severity in his Annalen, Hahnemann as usual remained silent; but his son Frederick Hahnemann undertook the defense of Homeopathy, 1811).

This task he performed but indifferently. He also occasionally assisted his father in his investigations of the pathogenetic properties of various medicines; however, he does not seem to have risen above mediocrity. His restless disposition and eccentric habits, as well as domestic circumstance, induced him to leave Germany.

He went to Dublin, not to practice Homeopathy, but for the avowed and exclusive purpose of curing epilepsy. In this, if report can be trusted, he frequently succeeded; but his professional conduct exceeded even the ordinary limits of oddity and eccentricity, to make use of the mildest terms.

He soon left Dublin again, and when Hahnemann, for the last time, heard anything about him he was somewhere in the West Indies. You may rely upon this account, as I have heard, during my long sojourn in Dublin, and from the most authentic sources, a great many particulars which were very far from flattering, and always embarrassing, as people, like your correspondent, were apt to confound the two Hahnemanns.

Besides this I had, in April, 1843, a long conversation with Hahnemann himself on this very subject. I was on the point of starting on a tour through North America, and intended to return by the West Indies.

Although Hahnemann had great reason to be dissatisfied with his son, and seldom spoke of him, it would seem that his then weak state of health, from which he told me he would never rally, had softened his paternal heart, and he evinced great anxiety that I should make extensive inquiries in the West Indies about his lost son. Circumstances, however, prevented my returning by that route.

Possibly Frederick Hahnemann is still alive, and may be met with by some of our numerous transatlantic friends. When I asked Hahnemann how I should know him, he said: He cannot deny his father as to features; he is humpbacked and eccentric in dress, manner and habits. These brief particulars about Frederick Hahnemann will, I trust, be sufficient for all public purposes. I remain your obedient servant, Charles W. Luther. Dublin, Aug. 28, 1852.