Homeopathy Papers

The Story of a Great Enthusiast

v
Written by John Henry Clarke

John Henry Clarke recalls the life of the extraordinary Benoit Jules Mure. Mure was an untiring proponent of homeopathy who involved himself in every aspect of homeopathy

Benoit Jules Mure

Excerpted from: The Enthusiasm of Homoeopathy with the Story of a Great Enthusiast –  Delivered at the British Homoeopathic Society 1906.

Benoit Jules Mure 1809 – 1858.  Mure was a French merchant, well known at Palermo, and having fallen into extreme ill health (phthisis pulmonalis is said to have been his malady), he was given over by his allopathic physicians.  Apparently in the last stage of consumption, the Organon of Hahnemann  fell into his hands, which he eagerly perused, and struck by the new light revealed in this extraordinary work, a ray of hope beamed upon him, and he hastened  away from Palermo to seek that relief from the hands of the homoeopathists which he was unable to obtain from the adherents  of the old school.

On his arrival at Lyons he placed himself under the care of the venerable Dr. Count des Guidi. Such was his miserable condition on leaving Sicily, his friends scarcely expected he would survive the fatigues of the sea voyage. Their astonishment was great when they saw him return in a few months in perfect health. All Palermo  flocked around him, and begged he would give them information respecting the  system which had produced on him these marvelous results.

He made some cautious experiments with homoeopathic remedies, and with complete success. Several physicians of Palermo were convinced by the proofs they saw of the efficacy of Homoeopathy, and set about studying it with diligence.    Mure was now resolved to consecrate the life that had been saved by Homoeopathy to its propagation, and abandoning  his commercial pursuits, he went to Montpellier to study medicine and obtain the legal qualifications for practising as a  physician.

Having completed his studies and obtained his degree, he began to devote  himself to propagate Homoeopathy. Malta was the first spot he chose for his operations. He arrived there in 1836. In the Grand Hall of the Knights of Provence, at Valetta, he got up an exhibition of his cures, something, we suppose, in the style of those formerly witnessed in this country, though on a more extensive scale, but not on that account of less questionable propriety.  But Dr. Mure, in his proselytising ardour, was no stickler for professional etiquette. He succeeded in making converts of some medical men there, particularly of Drs. Fennich, Buonavia, and De Claude.

The cholera having broken out in the kingdom of Naples, he crossed over to Palermo in 1837, and on the voyage wrote some papers on the progress of Homoeopathy and the homoeopathic treatment of cholera, with Hahnemann’s instructions for the cure of that disease. These he published on his arrival. The cholera not appearing in Sicily, he went elsewhere to propagate the faith, but was speedily recalled to Palmero by the invasion of the pest in 1837.  He did not arrive there, however, until the disease was already in its decline, after having carried off near a quarter of the population in forty days. Whilst most of the allopathic physicians had fled from the town during these fatal days, two of Mure’s disciples, Drs. De  Blasi and Bartoli, remained faithful to their post, and were instrumental in  rescuing a number of persons from the grave. However, the Academy of Palermo, which had erased De Blasi’s name from among its members on account of his heretical opinions, refused to register the cases treated by the homoeopathists. But the Government, appreciating the excellence of their treatment, took care to spread a knowledge of the method pursued by them among the parts of the country still ravaged by the plague.

Our hero now set about translating a repertorium from the German for the use of the Sicilian physicians, and established a pharmacy, where he made all the homoeopathic preparations with his own hands. He here invented a machine for triturating the medicines, and another for succussing the dilutions, of which he has  given us drawings in the Bibl. Horn, de  Geneve, and also in the work before us.  His plan was to triturate every substance, mineral, vegetable, and animal, up to the third attenuation, and with his succussion machines to give 300 shakes to each dilution. He undertook to supply every medical man gratuitously with all the homoeopathic preparations. Not being able to obtain bottles in sufficient quantity, he established a glass-blowing manufactory, himself instructing the workmen, whereby he was enabled to supply with pocket pharmacies all the medical men  who applied to him, and who were by no  means few in number.

During this time he translated into Italian Jahr’s Manual. In the beginning of 1838 he opened a dispensary at Palermo, and soon afterwards a second in the centre of the town on a magnificent scale. In less than a year the number of patients daily seen here amounted to upwards of 200, and above six physicians were occupied in attending to them. Physicians, students, lawyers, priests, literary men, flocked to this temple of charity to hear from the patients themselves an account of their astonishing  cures, we are told.  And thus this dispensary became the centre of the propaganda  for Sicily.

The allopathic physicians, our informant assures us, found themselves almost deserted by their patients. The apothecaries begged to be allowed to sell the homoeopathic medicines, and the wards of the great hospital were almost  forsaken. In some public hospitals Homoeopathy was adopted, viz., in the  hospitals of Morreale, Mistretta, Pietra  Perzia, and that of the brothers of San  Giovanni de Dio, their physicians having  become converts to the new system. In a very short time about thirty physicians declared themselves favourable to the new        doctrines, the principal of whom were Tranchina, De Blasi, De Bartoli, Morello,  Tripi, Calandra, Bandiera, the Marquis  Ingagiato, Vassallo, Lipomi, Cinirella,   Acito, Maglienti, Strina, Selvaggio, Perez,  Evola, Bonelli, Bataglia, Magri.

Under the editorship of De Blasi the Annali di la med Omiopaticay, a periodical  journal for the propagation of Homoeopathy, was established.  A homoeopathic society was formed, which in 1844 was formally recognized by government and converted into The Royal Homoeopathic Academy, where courses of lectures on Homoeopathy were delivered.  Having thus given the impulse to Homoeopathy in Sicily, our indefatigable colleague, desiring a new field for his beneficent conquests, turned his eyes towards Paris, and thinking things were not going on quickly enough there to his liking, he resolved to stir up the energies of his dormant confreres. Arriving in Paris in 1839, he immediately set about the foundation of a  homoeopathic institute, for the purpose of  spreading the system by practice, instruction, and publications. A dispensary was opened every day for the poor.

Courses of lectures were announced on Clinical Homoeopathy by Dr. Croserio on the Theory and History of Homoeopathy, and on Materia Medica by Dr. Jahr. Two newspapers for the indoctrination of the public were set a-going — a daily one, the Capitole, and a weekly one, the Nouveau Monde. A homoeopathic pharmacy was established, provided with all Dr. Mure’s ingenious apparatus. A library, containing all the homoeopathic works necessary for the student, was formed. The opening of this institute on  November 20, 1839, was rendered peculiarly imposing by the presence of  Hahnemann himself, and a long oration was pronounced by Dr. Jahr, which is reported in the Bibl. Horn, de Geneve for 1840, where also may be found numerous particulars relative to the impulse given  to Homoeopathy in France by Dr. Mure, the opposition he encountered, and the spirit with which he attacked his adversaries.

But this restless spirit yearned like Alexander for new worlds to conquer. He desired to find some land where he might be the first to break the ground, and to convey blessings hitherto unknown to a race of men ignorant of the glorious  doctrines of Hahnemann. He determined to cross the ocean and rear the standard  of Homoeopathy in the virgin soil of South America. Accordingly he sailed for Rio de Janeiro, and arrived there in 1840. The traces of Homoeopathy in the Brazilian empire were but few before that time. In 1834, a Dn Maya had published an article against Homoeopathy. In 1837 a  M. Jahn had presented a thesis on Homoeopathy to the Faculty of Medicine  of Rio, in which he related some cases of homoeopathic treatment, but these were  performed with massive doses of medicines in the crude state, and were not crowned with much success. Dr. Mure himself had before this time sent books and medicines to Brazil, but no one seems to have taken any notice of them.

Shortly after his arrival in Rio he converted a young surgeon of considerable celebrity as a skilful operator, A. J. Souto de Amaral, who died two years afterwards without ever abandoning entirely allopathic procedures. He was shortly after his arrival despatched by the Brazilian  Government to Ste. Catherine to found  a phalansterian colony, for our hero is an ardent Fourierist, and a disciple of  Swedenborg to boot.  On his journey he treated many patients, and spread abroad a knowledge of the system.  At Ste. Catherine he made a convert of Dr.  T. de Silveira. At the end of March 1841, we find him again at Rio, where he was joined by Dr. Lisboa, and he soon succeeded in converting a number of allopathic physicians, and vigorously assailed the old school by his publications and successful practice.  He travelled about from place to place, creating wherever he went a homoeopathic public, whom he left in charge of some medical man of whom he had made a convert.

His custom, we believe, was, when he arrived in any new town, to address appeals to the priests, in the name of charity and Christianity, to assist him in the propagation of the system, and by this means he made numerous converts among the clergy, whose influence with the laity served to spread a knowledge of Homoeopathy in a very short time, and crowds speedily flocked to his gratuitous consultations.   “His resources being speedily exhausted in these disinterested efforts to spread the cause, he found himself forced to settle down to remunerative practice, which he did in Rio in 1842. Towards the end of that year, with the assistance of Dr. Martins and Dr. Lisboa, he founded the Brazilian Institute, and opened the first dispensary in Rio. In July, 1844, the foundation of the homoeopathic school was laid, and the course of study was opened in January, 1845.

By 1854, Benoit Jules Mure had conducted some thirty eight provings and translated them into English, including a number of new snake venoms and guano. In the heat of the Nubian desert, he produced a Logarithm Repertory using Greek letters in a code that required a cryptographer to use. He left for Rio de Janeiro in 1843, and founded the Instituto Homeopático do Brasil, serving as its president until 1848 (when he returned to Europe).

In 1852, he started homeopathic activities in Cairo, Alexandria, and other areas of Egypt (including Turkiyah Sudan). He died there six years later.

Editor’s Note:  The last two paragraphs are from Sue Young’s website of biographies: http://sueyounghistories.com/

About the author

John Henry Clarke

John Henry Clarke MD (1853 – November 24, 1931 was a prominent English classical homeopath. Dr. Clarke was a busy practitioner. As a physician he not only had his own clinic in Piccadilly, London, but he also was a consultant at the London Homeopathic Hospital and researched into new remedies — nosodes. For many years, he was the editor of The Homeopathic World. He wrote many books, his best known were Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia Medica

1 Comment

  • For more about Benoit Mure and his proving of the diseased potato Solanum Tuberosum Aegrotans, take a look at my book, Homeopathy in the Irish Potato Famine. Copies from me are UK £7 plus postage.

Leave a Reply to Francis Treuherz X