|
Homeopathic Awareness Week
In honour of Homeopathic Awareness Week (June 14 - 21) I have decided to write some short articles about some of the pioneers of homeopathy in Britain. First up is the man who brought homeopathy to this country, Frederick Foster Hervey Quin. Doctor, maverick, gentleman, raconteur, homeopath and great wit, Quin is one of Britain's forgotten heroes.
Britain's
first homeopathic doctor
- Frederick
Foster Hervey Quin is born in 1799. He is thought at one
time to be the illegitimate son of the Duchess of Devonshire
but this rumour is never substantiated.
- Quin
studies medicine in Edinburgh, graduates in 1820 and is
appointed as Napoleon's doctor in St Helena. The once emperor
of France dies before meeting Quin.
- In 1810 Samuel Hahnemann publishes the first edition of The Organon the central text of homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy is born and spreads quickly over Europe and across the Atlantic.
- Quin
learns of homeopathy while in Belgium and is practising
as an homeopath in 1827 making him Britain's first homeopathic
doctor. He subsequently meets Hahnemann in Germany and studies
with him.
- In
London, Quin becomes both famous and notorious as a great
raconteur, socialite and homeopathic doctor. He establishes
a foothold for homeopathy in England that has remained to
the present day.
- When
Quin is proposed as a member of the prestigious Athenaeum
Club in London, a member of the club, a
 certain
Dr. Paris, who is also president of the Royal College of
Surgeons refers to Quin as 'a quack and an adventurer.'
Quin famously challenges him either to send a written apology
or to a duel with pistols at 50 paces. Dr. Paris apologises.
- Dr.
Quin goes on to found both the British Homeopathic Society
(1844) and the London Homeopathic Hospital (1850) which
later becomes the present Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.
- In
1854 a cholera outbreak in Soho leads to many deaths but
the mortality rate at the London Homeopathic Hospital (established
by Quin) is only 16% whereas the nearby Middlesex Hospital
has a death rate of 53%.
- Dr
Quin, a friend of the Prince of Wales, goes on to establishes
a link with the Royal Family and the appointment of Royal
Homeopathic Physician which has been maintained ever since
and has helped maintain a continuity of credibility for
homeopathic medicine in Britain.
- Although
Quin does not write any books he remains the most important
friend homeopathy has ever had in the United Kingdom.
- Quin
continues to win both friends and enemies. In 1872 Vanity
Fair, one of the most popular magazines of the day, publishes
a cover with a gross caricature of Dr Quin. The picture
is sarcastically titled "Homeopathic Society".
- Quin
dies in 1878 and England loses a great physician and gentleman.
"In
all his sallies of wit he was never known to say anything
of, or to any one, which bore a sting, neither did his intimacy
with the highest personages in the country, as is the case
of men of smaller minds, ever lead him to give up his professional
and other friends. He was always ready to dine with an old
friend as with royalty, and his ear was ever open to any
request for advice or help in difficulty, from whatever
quarter it
came"
(from
Bradfords Pioneers of Homeopathy as quoted by Julian Winston
in The Faces of Homeopathy, Great Auk Publ.
1999)
NEXT
STORY: The Life
of Sir John Weir, the only
homeopath to be knighted and the doctor who prescribed the
same homeopathic
remedy to five kings and three queens on a single day in
1952!
Go
back
|
