The California Homeopath
Journal of the California Homeopathic Medical Society

There are certain books in your library that you hold special. The older, the dearer, has always been my motto. The history books of King and Bradford, and recently, our departed friend, Julian Winston, impress us with the scope of homeopathy, and along with the journals, are our history. As homeopaths we are familiar with the life of Hahnemann, but our knowledge of Constantine Hering may often be limited to his proving of Lachesis and the picture of him on his couch where he studied and slept in his library. Although Hering and Hahnemann never met, the two remained very close through correspondence, and the torch was undoubtedly passed on to Hering, who in turn spread Hahnemann’s “new medicine” most dynamically. Calvin Knerr is most known for completing the ten volumes of “The Guiding Symptoms.” Hering died while literally working on the third volume, and Knerr, his son in law,was left with the responsibility to finish the work. No homeopathic library should be without these editions. Yet there is another book that Knerr published late in his life, that has a special niche on my bookshelf; the “Life of Hering”. Knerr graduated from Hahnemann Medical College , in Philadelphia, in 1869, and soon after moved in with Hering’s family to be the doctor’s assistant. In 1873, Dr. Knerr was married to Hering’s daughter, Melitta. No one was more qualified than Knerr to keep a diary of life in the Hering household. Reading the biography’s daily accounts, and Hering’s stories about his life, prompted me to present excerpts from those days with Hering, and extract enough to give the flavor of this great character and the life that revolved around him. The excerpts are chronological, and are only a glimpse of this great biography.

By Premananda Childs

Premananda Childs served Co-Editor of the new California Homeopath at its inception in 2006.