Ephraim Connor 1893 – 1981
Ephraim Connor 1893 – 1981 was a self taught Scottish lay homeopath and homeopathic vet.
Connor was a self taught lay homeopath who ‘wrote a book about dogs, ended up as a publican at the bottom end of the Caledonian Canal and was a queer old stick’ [Brown, 1991]. He published Simplified Dog Cures in 1946, [Homeopathic Publishing Company] which was also reviewed in Heal Thyself, 1946-7.
Connor appears to have been a strange figure who kept a big house near Motherwell with a huge stock of old remedies from all the main manufacturers. Little is known of how his original contact with homeopathy came about, for example, or if he was taught by any doctors in Glasgow.
Ephraim Connor’s son, James Connor, [born c.1919] hailed from Glasgow. He qualified LRCP LRCS [Edin.] LRFPS [Glas] in 1943, and lived at 14 Belmont Crescent, Glasgow [Medical Directory 1948]. He is now in London, Ontario, Canada [Brown and Pert] and is no longer listed in the Medical Register.
I have had some contact with his son Dr. Jim Connor in Toronto, Ephraim’s grandson, but he has lost contact with his father who is still in Canada, and it is difficult to see how any further information can be obtained about Ephraim.
With thanks to Francis Treuherz, I here reproduce his article Ephraim Connor 1893-1981 The Homeopath 1986 :
Ephraim Connor practiced in Mothrwell, then Glasgow, and finally in semi retirement in the Highlands.
I recently visited his widow and talked with her. I offered her the opportunity to write about her late husband for us, but she declined most politely.
He apparently had the effortless skill we declare to be that of an intuitive prescriber, but it appeared that he was entirely self taught, and what we call intuition was the result of study and experience. The study was obviously intense, as he had the most extensive private library known in Scotland, according to P W Thomas, Librarian to the Faculty of Homeopathy.
His latest home was a rambling cottage which had been the servants quarters to a highland shooting lodge. In a damp, but beautifully pannelled outhouse, which had been the gun room, I saw a few hundred volumes, from every era of British and North American homeopathy. They were a confused jumble, the relics of a rich life and practice, now sadly decaying and mildewed.
Shouldham’s unique work on Clergymen’s Sore Throat (c1870) lay bleakly alongside Eduard Von Grauvogl‘s Constitutional Medicine (also 1870) and two volumes on Cancer by J Ellis Barker (c1935).
I learned that his son is now a homeopathic physician in Canada, and that some forty chests of books had already left these shores. Also scattered around the gun room were hundreds of remedies in every potency from 0 to 50M, bearing the labels from wherever. Thomas Skinner, James Tyler Kent, John Pert, Nelson, William Boericke, Adolf Tafel, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Ehrhardt, Karl, James Epps, Thatcher, M F Thompson, and later Pert of West Nile Street, Glasgow, and Scottish Homeopathic and Biochemical Supplies of Buchanan Street, Glasgow.
They had been subjected to extremes of Scottish weather and many of the liquid potencies had dried out completely. There was a jar of yellow sulphur marked 0 next to a white 1X, making a gentle contrast on the shelves of an exquisite medicine chest as large as I have ever seen.
Indoors, was a wonderful desk like an ancient monument, potencies spilling out of every nook and crannie. A late photograph showed an irrascible, short, frowning gentleman in a kilt, with a venerable shock of white hair and a moustache to match.
He began in Morthwell as a homeopathic vet, and even wrote a book about dogs (Simplified Dog Cures). Another passion was guns, and he became Honorary Vice President and Chairman of the County of Lanark Smallbore Rifle Association.He obviously had a busye practice, employed a huge slection of remedies and potencies, read widely, and drew patients from far and wide, even in the Highlands. A motoring accident led to a decline in his last years. Non unitilis vix.
There have always been lay practitioners of homeopathy in Britain, but few of them from the older generation appear to have taught extensively in recent years, with the notable exception of the late Thomas Maughan and the late John DaMonte, and few have written, notably Phyllis M Speight.
I am aware of two lay homeopaths in their seventies, one in Somerset and one in Yorkshire. I should like to think while they are still alive and well, that we undertake a little oral history project, finding their expertise and historical knowledge, and sharing it before it is too late. we should secure a future for their libraries. Our practice must be to recreate the skills which once existed, and where they still exist, to harness them.
I have been deliberately vague about the locations to protect the families of the people mentioned from unwelcome intrusions. I hope that colleagues will contact me personally to share information about other examples of this kind. I should love to read some real memories of past practitioners and teachers.
Ephraim Connor Homeopath, was the defendant in a divorce, or an ‘Action of Adherence and Aliment’ raised by his wife Christina Allen Connor in the Sheriff’s Court in Glasgow in 1955.
Of interest:
Dr James Connor, c.1921- , Glasgow, Son of Ephraim Connor, LRCP LRCS Edin. LRFPS Glas 1943, 14 Belmont Cres, Glasgow (Med. Dir. 1948) “Now living in Canada.” (Brown and Pert). Not in 1988 Med. Reg. ‘He is now living in London, Ontario, Canada.’ [Dr Jim Connor, 1995, son who is a medical historian at University of Toronto, in an email to Peter Morrell]
Sue :: Mar.11.2009 :: British History :: No Comments »