Dr. Calvin Brobst Knerr was an acclaimed American Homoeopath of the 19th century in America, whose increasing fame worldwide in the following centuries made him immortal in the Homoeopathic field. Dr. Knerr is known as the most famous student of Dr. Constantine Hering, popularly known as the Father of American Homoeopathy.
Birth and Family Background:
Dr. Knerr was born on 27th December, 1847, in Claussville, Pennsylvania, USA. He already had a background in Homoeopathy as his father was a lay practitioner in Allentown, Pennsylvania. His uncle, John Helfrich was a reverend and was associated with Dr. Hering at the Allentown Academy.
Education:
Before becoming a physician, he obtained a liberal arts education and briefly worked as a teacher in a country school. He attended the Allentown College Institute but, in the fall of 1867, he moved to Philadelphia to attend the Hahnemann Medical College and completed his graduation from the same in the spring of 1869. Dr. Hering was the Dean of this institute. Here he had Dr. Allen Cowperthwaite and Dr. T. L. Bradford as his colleagues. He started practising the same year. Besides practising, he also got attached to the office of Dr. Hering and became his assistant, an empty position for quite some time. He lived at the house of Dr. Hering.
Vacation and Visits:
After working for 2 years under Dr. Hering, Dr. Knerr’s health began to suffer as he struggled to keep up with Dr. Hering. Dr. Hering was described by him as a ‘Man of iron constitution’. Dr. Knerr then decided to take a yearlong vacation dedicated to sightseeing and some educational ventures. His place as an assistant to Dr. Hering was substituted by Dr. Claude R. Norton, who later edited the work ‘The Domestic Physician’.
During this one year, he studied in Berlin, Vienna and London, and visited members of his extended family and the relatives of Dr. Hering. His undying thirst for knowledge took him to study special courses at the University in Berlin by Helmholtz, who was a teacher of Physics and Dubois Reymond, who was a Physiologist. He also explored the field of Archaeology. This short course in Archaeology described the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. He also visited the clinics of throat and lung experts Schroeder and Stoerck during a winter course at the Vienna hospital. He even attended lectures on Anatomy given by the esteemed Hyrtl and skin disease lectures by Hebra and Skoda. He spent the remainder of his time on the continent touring and seeing several of the leading early homoeopaths, namely Ruckert in Herrnhut, Aegidi near Berlin, Hartlaub in Thuringia, and Heermann in Paris.
During his brief visit to Leipzig, Europe, he paid a visit to Master Hahnemann’s eldest daughter, who was practising at her father’s home in Coethen, close to Leipzig. She gave him some intriguing artefacts, among them pellets of aconite from a bottle her father had used. During this visit, he realised that her thoughts were nothing but contempt for Madame Melanie, Master Hahnemann’s second wife who had enticed her father to Paris, severing him from his roots and his family so that he might be used in a profitable scheme in the big city.
He made a small visit to the museum of Salzburg where he collected photographs of Theophrastus von Hohenheim, commonly known as Paracelsus. He knew that Dr. Hering was an ardent admirer of Hohenheim and collected works made on and by him. The visit ended in Edinburg where the time was spent reading medical books and travelling nearby.
Return to Dr. Hering:
Dr. Knerr was a devoted son-in-law, employee, fellow Homoeopath and friend of Dr. Hering. In the summer of 1873, he returned to his position of assistant to Dr. Hering and married Dr. Hering’s daughter Mellita Hering in the same year. They had been engaged the year before he left for Europe. Their marriage lasted for 53 years and they were blessed with 3 boys and a daughter. The elder son, Bayard went on to become a physician, Horace was a metallurgist and Harold went on to become a cartoonist and was the creator of the classic comic strip ‘The Katzenjammer Kids.’ Little is known about the daughter, Mildred.
Literary contributions:
- Sunstroke and its Homoeopathic treatment, 1878
In the year 1878, he made his first works public. The 2nd edition came out in the subsequent year in 1879.
- The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica,1879-1891
Following his graduation, he assisted Hering in editing his manuscript for a while working as Hering’s assistant. Following the passing of Dr. Hering, the unfinished masterpiece was completed by Dr. Calvin B. Knerr, Dr. Charles Mohr, and Dr. Charles Raue.
- A Repertory of Hering’s Guiding Symptoms of our Materia Medica, 1896
Dr. Knerr spent 5 years of his life in making this two-volume repertory. The structure is wholly based on Guiding symptoms. The philosophy of “Relationships” at the end of the book and gradations were also preserved in this repertory. However, due to its large size, it was not very popular in daily life.
Knerr’s repertory was out of print for a significant amount of time. Following an extended exchange of letters, Dr. Knerr consented to give Messrs. M. Bhattacharyya and Co. of Kolkata the sole right of publication. He wrote extra passages for this edition and revised the entire piece. He wrote additional passages for this edition and rewrote the entire piece.
- The Conversation, Talks, Life & Times of Hering, 1940.
During his time at the house of Hering, Dr. Knerr recorded the life of Dr. Hering in a diary which formed the basis of this book in his later life as a mode of teaching other students about his experience. This book was published when he was aged 93 years.
Demise:
Dr. Calvin B. Knerr had lived and practised at 332 S. Camac Street, Philadelphia, USA. He became ill and moved to his son, Horace Knerr’s home in Mt. Airy, where he passed away on September 30, 1940. He had lived for 93 well-accomplished years.
Author
Prof. (Dr.) Subhas Singh1, Dr. Rumsha Tamkeen2, Dr. Vaishnavi Achrekar2, Dr. Binay P. Singh2, Dr. Vignesh S.2
- Director, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Kolkata
- Postgraduate scholar, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Kolkata
