Clemens Maria Franz Baron von Boenninghausen was one of the closest follower and friend of Hahnemann. He was born in Netherlands on 12 March 1785, on the ancestral estate of Heringhaven in Oberyssel. He was the son of Ludwig Ernest von Boenninghausen and Theresia. He was a Baron by inheritance, a lawyer by profession and an agriculturist by inclination.
In 1806, he graduated from the Dutch university at Groningen – degree of Doctor of Civil and Criminal Law and thereafter for several years he held influential positions at the court of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, remaining in the Dutch Civil Service until the resignation of the king in July 1810.	BOENNINGHAUSEN

He then returned home and devoted himself to the study of agriculture and botany. Through his interest in the development of agricultural resources, he came in touch with the most prominent agriculturists of Germany, and he formed the first agricultural society in the western part of Germany. In 1816 he became President of the Provincial Court of Justice for Westphalia, a position he retained until 1822. In 1824 he became Director of the Botanical Gardens of Munster, retaining this position for several years. He came to be known as “Sage of Munster”.

In autumn of 1827 he suffered from pulmonary purulent tuberculosis. His health continued to decline until the spring of 1828, when all hope of his recovery was given up. At this time he wrote a letter to his close friend, Dr. August Weihe, who was the first homoeopathic physician in the province of Rhineland and Westphalia, though Boenninghausen was ignorant of this fact. Weihe was deeply moved by the news and replied to Boenninghausen's letter immediately, requesting a detailed account of his symptoms and expressing the hope that he might be able to save a friend whom he valued so highly. In response to the reply that Boenninghausen sent to this letter, Weihe prescribed 'Pulsatilla', which Boenninghausen took, following also the course of advice that Weihe gave him regarding hygienic measures. Boenninghausen's recovery was gradual but constant, so that by the end of the summer he was considered as cured.

This event transformed Boenninghausen into a firm believer in Homœopathy. He revived his knowledge of medicine and began to practice. But he had no license to practice as a physician and for this reason he devoted himself to Homœopathy. Most of the systematic works written by Boenninghausen concerning Homoeopathy were published between 1828 and 1846. By this time Bœnninghausen's fame had spread to France, Holland and America, and he had gained many converts to the new doctrine of healing among physicians in these lands, by correspondence and literary efforts, which were extended in the effort of making the work of practicing homoeopathy easier.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, on 11 July 1843, permitted Boenninghausen to practice medicine without any restraint.

From 1830 Boenninghausen was in close touch with Hahnemann, until the end of Hahnemann's life. His literary work was hampered by the permission to practice freely, and he did not publish his books as frequently after that event, although he spent much time at that labor.

Boenninghausen lived for many years in Munster. He received patients daily from nine to two o'clock, from two to five he spent in walking about the suburbs and in the Botanical Gardens. He lived to attain the age of seventy-nine years, dying of apoplexy on January 26, 1864.

His Therapeutic Pocket Book, first published in1846, is one of the classics. He devoted himself to presenting the Materia Medica so that the chief characteristics of each remedy might be thoroughly understood by the practitioner and his writings are mostly devoted to that object.

CONTRIBUTIONS :

1. The Cure of Cholera and Its Preventatives, 1831
2. Repertory of the Antipsoric Medicines, with a preface by Hahnemann, 1932
3. Summary View of the Chief Sphere of Operation of the Antipsoric Remedies and of their Characteristic Peculiarities, as an Appendix to their Repertory, 1833
4. An Attempt at a Homoeopathic Therapy of Intermittent Fever, 1833
5. Contributions to a Knowledge of the Peculiarities of Homoeopathic Remedies, 1833
6. Homoeopathic Diet and a Complete Image of a Disease, 1833
7. Homoeopathy, a Manual for the Non-Medical Public, 1834
8. Repertory of the Medicines which are not Antipsoric, 1935
9. Attempt at Showing the Relative Kinship of Homoeopathic Medicines, 1836
10. Therapeutic Manual for Homoeopathic Physicians, for use at the sickbed and in the study of the Materia Medica Pura, 1846
11. Brief Instructions for Non-Physicians as to the Prevention and Cure of Cholera, 1849
12. The Two Sides of the Human Body and Relationships. Homoeopathic Studies, 1853
13. The Homoeopathic Domestic Physician in Brief, Therapeutic Diagnoses – An Attempt, 1853
14. The Homoeopathic Treatment of Whooping Cough in its Various Forms, 1860
15. The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, with Notes by a Homoeopath, 1863
16. Attempt at a Homœopathic Therapy of Intermittent and Other Fevers, especially for would be homoeopaths – Second augmented and revised edition. Part 1. The Pyrexy, 1864

This American Homoeopathic physician was born on 1st January 1800 at Oschath in Saxony in America. He started studying medicine at the age of seventeen at the University of Leipzig. He was a popular student and a favorite of the well-known surgeon Dr. Robbi. Dr. Robbi was a staunch believer of modern medicine who used to criticize Dr. Hahnemann and ridicule homoeopathy.

In 1821, many campaigns against Homoeopathy were at its peak. The founder of publishing house, Mr. C. Baumgartner wanted to publish a book against Homoeopathy and he could think of no one better than Dr. Robbi. However, Dr. Robbi refused to do the work and instead; he passed on the work to his assistant, Dr. Hering. Dr. Hering was very enthusiastic and confident, and took up the work willingly. While going through Materia Medica Pura by Dr. Hahnemann, he came across famous “Not a bene for my reviewers” in the preface of third volume. The content had following points:

Dr.Hering

	"The doctrine appeals not only chiefly, but solely to the verdict of experience."
	"Repeat the experiments, repeat them carefully and accurately and you will find doctrine confirmed at every step."
	"It does what no medical doctrine, no system of physics, not so called therapeutics did or could do, it insists upon being judged by the results."

Dr. Hering was amazed on reading this and decided to repeat the experiments in order to confirm the facts. So he repeated the cinchona bark experiments and got the desired results. Similarly, he used other sources to experiment and got the doctrine of symptoms confirmed. He was not only very much impressed with Dr. Hahnemann’s work but also got convinced slowly about it. This was the reason why the book against Homoeopathy never materialized.

Dr. Hering’s faith in Homoeopathy grew stronger with his own personal experience. He had once cut his three fingers of his right hand while dissecting a dead body and his wound was not healing and becoming rapidly gangrenous. The modern medicines could not help him and he was advised amputation. However, Dr. Kummer persuaded him to take homoeopathy and with a few doses of Arsenicum-album, his gangrene completely healed. Since then, Dr. Hering started studying Homoeopathy.

He did his M.D. from the University of Wuezburg with his thesis named “De Medicina Futura” (the medicine of future). He left Germany and came to Philadelphia in January 1833, where he started his practice as a homoeopathic physician. Later, he founded a Homoeopathic school, ‘Allentown Academy’ at Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dr. Hering was a famous physician who had not only successfully treated many patients with homoeopathy but had also made lot of contributions towards this science through his studies, a few to quote are:

	Hering continued his experiments and proved many remedies like Lachesis, Cantharis, Colchicum, Lyssin, Sabadilla, Sabina, Psorinum, Nux moschata, Mezerium, Platina, Ferrum metallicum, Kalmia, Phosphoric acid, Fluoric acid, Phytolacca, Apis, Crotallus, Glonoine etc.
	He wrote ten volumes of ‘Herings Guiding Symptoms’ and many other books
	Dr. Hering was the chief editor of ‘North American Homoeopathic Journal’, ‘The Homoeopathic journal of Materia Medica’ And ‘The Homoeopathic News’.
	He introduced Hering’s law Of Cure that is employed by practitioners even today to assess their cures.

According to Dr. Hering,healing occurs in a consistent pattern, which he described in the form of three basic laws.

Hering's first law states that, healing progresses from the deepest part of the organism - the mental and emotional levels and the vital organs - to the external parts, such as skin and extremities (from within outward).

E.g. During the process of cure, asthma disappears and the patient develops a rash on the skin.

Hering's second law states that, as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in the reverse of their original chronological order of appearance, which means that symptoms that are last to manifest would be the first to disappear and vice versa.

E.g. If a patient with long standing diabetes develops a skin infection, then in the course of treatment, the skin gets better first and then the diabetes.

According to Hering’s third law, healing progresses from the upper to the lower parts of the body.

E.g. a person is considered to be improving if the arthritic pain in his neck has decreased; though he now has pain in finger joints.

Hering began his medical journey as an orthodox medical practitioner but later in life, excelled as a homoeopath by his own experimentation and hard work. His journey ended on his demise in 1880 but he will remain immortal because of his vast invaluable contributions to the homoeopathic fraternity.

Dr. Wilhelm Schuessler was a pioneer, and formed one of the pillars of homeopathy. He was the founder of the Biochemic System of Medicine.

He was born on the 21st of August 1821 in Oldenburg, Germany. Since childhood,Schuessler was a studious boy and had remarkable capabilities. He devoted most of his time learning foreign languages like Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, English and Italian. He wanted to become a Homeopathic physician when he grew up, but his brother told him that he would assist him to become one, only if he became a legally qualified practitioner. Keeping to his word, Schuessler studied medicine at the university of Berlin, Paris, Geissen and Prague. He then qualified as a homeopathic practitioner and started his practice at Oldenburg.

Dr.Schuessler

Dr. Schuessler was very much influenced by Rudolph Virchow (the founder of cellular pathology), who taught that all diseases are based on a change in the function of cells in the body. Another important person who influenced him greatly was Professor Moleschott, who pointed out that the structure and vitality of the organs depends upon the presence of inorganic constituents. Based on the theories of these two, Schuessler formulated his own doctrine, which he called the Cell salt therapy or the Biochemic system of medicine. He is also referred as the Father of deficiency therapy.

Dr Schuessler believed that when a human being is reduced to ashes by heat, there are only twelve minerals left. These he called as the tissue salts. They are responsible for the natural balance and vitality of the body. According to him, deficiency of any of these tissue salts produces a diseased condition in the human organism, and replenishment or supplementation of the body by the deficient salt, in physiological doses restores health in the organism. Schuessler potentised these tissue salts and made them into homeopathic remedies.

He also went one step further and correlated each tissue salt with the twelve zodiac signs :

Silicea	Sagittarius
Kali sulphuricum	Virgo
Ferrum phosphoricum	Pisces
Calcarea sulphuricum	Scorpio
Natrum phosphoricum	Libra
Natrum muriaticum	Aquarius
Kali phosphoricum	Aries
Kali muriaticum	Gemini
Natrum sulphuricum	Taurus
Calcarea fluoricum	Cancer
Calcarea phosphoricum	Capricorn
Magnesia phosphoricum	Leo

Schuessler wrote a lot of books during his time. In 1873, he published his first article on his healing system in the General homeopathic Journal, and titled it ‘An Abridged Therapy based on physiology and cellular pathology’.

He had lot of ardent followers like Elizabeth Hubbard, Dr Stephenson, Dr. M Blackmore and others. In 1958, Dr Blackmore popularized Schuessler’s works in his book- ‘Colloids- A textbook for physicians’. He also refined Schuessler’s salts by adding more tissue salts besides the existing twelve (except for sodium chloride).

The most interesting account of the application of Schuesslers’ remedies is to be found in the book titled "Nature's 12 Magic Healers: The Amazing Secrets of Cell Salts" by Lionel Rolfe and Nigey Lennon. This book contains comments on the value of these salts by two eminent homeopathic physicians, Dr. J. H. Renner MD and Dr. William E. S. Jackson MD. Schuessler died in the year 1898 but his works have remained immortal.

Dr. Carroll Dunham was a well-known American Homoeopath. He was born in New York on 29th October in 1828. He completed his medicine from Columbia University in 1847 and did his M.D. from New York College in 1850.

When Clarke was in Dublin, he hurt himself with a very serious dissecting wound, which was life threatening .It was the Homoeopathic medicine ‘Lachesis’ which cured him then. This aroused his interest in homeopathy and he began visiting homeopaths all over Europe to learn about the science. At Munster, he came in contact with Dr. Boeninghausen and gathered lot of experience under his guidance. He started practicing with that experience and had a roaring practice. He was so stressed with the vast practice that he developed Rheumatic carditis. Once again, Homeopathy came to his rescue and he was cured with ‘Lithium carb’, which Dr. Hering gave him.

Dr.Dunham

His contributions to Homeopathy include:

	‘Lectures of Homoeopathic Materia Medica’ which was written even before Kent’s Materia Medica.
	‘Homoeopathy, The Science of Therapeutics’, which contained profile essays on homeopathy.
	He was a president of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
	He was the dean of New York Homeopathic College and professor of Materia Medica.
	He was also a member of various American and foreign societies.

In 1876, he organized a ‘World Homoeopathic Convention’ at Philadelphia, which was a huge success. His vast practice and dedicated involvement in the World Homoeopathic Convention exhausted him. He was ill for 3-4 months and died in February 1877 at a very young age of 49 years.

Dr. Nash was born on 8th March 1838.He studied his Homoeopathy from the Cleveland College of homoeopathy in 1874.
He was a great orator; hence he conducted lot of meetings methodically and successfully. He became the president of International Hahnemannian Association in 1903. He taught at the New York Homoeopathic Medical College.Dr. Nash wrote two famous books, ‘Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics’ and ‘Leaders for the use of Sulphur’. He died on 6 November 1917.	Dr.Nash

Dr. Kent is considered to be one of the prominent pioneers of Homoeopathy and forms one of the pillars of Homoeopathy.
He was born on 31st March 1849, at Woodhull in New York. He completed two undergraduate degrees by the age of 21 years and there after went in for two post graduation courses at the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati Ohio without completing his graduation. Kent was a staunch Baptist.	Dr.Kent

At 26 years of age, he began practicing as an eclectic physician at St Louis, Missouri. He was a well-known member of the Eclectic National Medical Association.

Kent’s first wife Ellen had died shortly after their marriage at the tender age of 19. He married again and his second wife, Lucy became seriously ill, in the year 1878. She was suffering from insomnia, nervous weakness and anemia. In spite of treatment with the best possible medicines from both the eclectic and orthodox systems, she did not respond. Her condition kept worsening and she was bedridden for months together. A Homeopathic physician called Dr. Richard Phelan was called over to examine Lucy. Kent strongly opposed his consultation and even ridiculed him. But, after a prescription from him, Lucy began to improve dramatically. Kent was thoroughly impressed and decided to study under Dr. Phelan. He realized that Homoeopathy was the only system of medicine, which was based on sound laws and principles. Also, he began to believe that Homoeopathy was the only system, which looked at the core or the fundamental cause of an illness.

This insight brought about a complete conversion of Kent from eclectian school of thought to Homeopathy. He gave up his practice and began an ardent study of Homoeopathy through its books. He studied Hahnemann’s Organon in depth along with other works and in1879; he retired from the eclectic medical association.

He was appointed as chief of Anatomy, in the Homoeopathic medical college, at St. Louis, Missouri. He maintained this position from 1883 to1888. He later became a professor of Materia Medica, and the Dean of the postgraduate’s school of Homoeopathy, at the Hahnemann Medical College at Philadelphia. He was also a professor of Materia Medica at the Hering Medical College and hospital at Chicago. It was around this time that his second wife Lucy died.

Kent had been in the field of teaching and practice of Homoeopathy for twenty-five years and was also a well-known figure in medical circles for more than 35 years. He was the only homeopath who contributed vastly to the system in all the three fields i.e. philosophy, Materia- Medica and repertory. His writings on these subjects include ‘Repertory’, ‘Lectures on Homoeopathy’ and ‘Homoeopathic Philosophy’, which are considered invaluable till date. His work of the repertory is more systematic than any previous authors. Kent’s repertory was the first repertory, which was systematically indexed, in the hierarchal order. Later, Dr. Kunjli revised this repertory and Dr. Harishchandra has done the most recent revision of the same. He created portraits of remedies e.g. - Sulphur as ‘The ragged philosopher’ and so on.

Later on, Margaret Tyler, who was his student, further developed his ideas of constitutional pictures of remedies and wrote a book, Homoeopathic drug pictures. Along with his various books, he is the one who will be remembered for his observations, ‘Kent’s Twelve observations’, which are so useful in today’s day-to-day practice.

Kent proved a lot of remedies in his time. Some of the provings include, Alum-Phos, Alum-Sil, Aur-ars, Aur-Iod, Calc-Sil, Bar-Iod, Bar-Sulph, Cench, Ferr-Ars, Kal-Sil, Nat-Sil, and Zinc- Phos etc.

Kent has inspired lots of students, one of them being the recent Dr. George Vithoulkas, and to this date Kent’s ideas and philosophy are followed like a Bible.

Some of the features of his teachings are :

	Single medicine prescription
	Use of high potencies (200 and above) in centesimal scale,especially in chronic cases
	Wait and watch principle, which he adapted from the 4th edition of Organon. (No repetition was made of the dry dose till improvement from the previous dose stopped completely.)

He was a believer in high potencies (200 and above) and prescribed the CM and MM potencies frequently. He believed that homoeopathy treats not only the physical symptoms but also the emotional and mental symptoms and this requires implementation of higher potencies for effective results.

Kent was also looked up-to as a very able and skilled teacher, and an exponent of the American school of Homoeopathy. He was a member of many institutions like the Illinois state homoeopathic medical society, American institute of homoeopathy and the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also an honorary at the British Homoeopathic Medical Society.

In 1916, on the insistence of his students, Kent decided to take a vacation from his teachings and went to Stevensville, Montana. He was suffering from catarrhal bronchitis which developed into Bright’s disease (glomerulonephritis) and two weeks later, on June 16, 1916 he died.

Some of his popular writings include :

	Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica. (1877) He compiled this for his own use but later other homoeopaths began asking for copies. His wife Clara revised it till 1961 and today it forms the basis for most of the other repertories.
	What the Doctor needs to know in order to make a successful prescription (1900)
	lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy (1900)
	Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica(1904)
	New remedies, Clinical Cases, Lesser Writings, Aphorisms and Precepts (1926)

From the 1900, Kent’s writings influenced homeopathic practice of a lot of homeopaths world over but recently, weaknesses and limitations in it have started becoming obvious.

Some of the weaknesses include :

	It does not include the use or benefits of the fifty-millisimal scale, as the 6th edition of the Organon was not available to Kent.
	Expecting and desiring an aggravation at the beginning of the treatment for confirming the choice of remedy. This deliberate seeking of an aggravation is contrary to the Hahnemannian ideal of a rapid gentle and permanent cure.
	He and his followers gave excessive emphasis on the mental symptoms rather on symptom totality.
	It does not include the use or benefit of the fifty-millisimal scale as the 6th edition of Organon wasn’t available to Kent.

Dr. John Henry Clarke was a very distinguished homeopath of his time and is considered as one of the pillars of Homoeopathy. He was born in England in 1853. Academically, he had always been a brilliant student. He completed his medicine from the Edinburgh University in 1875, as a gold medallist and later, also did his post graduation i.e. M D. He then started his practice as a physician, which was a flourishing one as he had patients from all over the world seeking his treatment. Dr. Clarke used to remain so absorbed in his literary work that he never time for any other thing or anybody.

He was an ardent follower of Dr. Compton Burnett who was the editor of the magazine, ‘The Homoeopathic world’. In 1885, Dr. Clarke himself took over as the editor of the same magazine and continued his term for about 29 years. In his magazine, he had columns for the common man to express their views about Homoeopathy and he was very successful in this endeavor as many lay people from all over the world made their contributions to it.

Dr.Clarke

Dr. Clarke and Dr. Kent, of America, shared certain common qualities. Both of them were very vocal and always needed to be very expressive about their thoughts. Also, they have both made significant contributions by their research in Homoeopathy and so were always considered at par in the Homoeopathic fraternity.

Dr. Clarke’s contributions to the homoeopathic world are innumerable. His invaluable books, ‘Dictionary of Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia medica’ have kept him alive amongst homoeopaths even today. They are a precious treasure for every sincere homoeopath till date.

Dr. Hahnemann gave the world the knowledge of Homoeopathy but it was Dr. Clarke who propagated the teachings of homoeopathy with his thoughts and cases, based on firm scientific principles. His work was translated in different languages like Spanish and German too. Thus, he has really enlightened homoeopaths all over the world by his teachings and books.

He was a taskmaster and had the courage to face a lot of opposition for his ideas. He was not only verbal about his ideas in Homoeopathy but was also very vocal about his disagreement about the empirical prescribing. Few such e.g. are:

	His article, ‘Pouring drugs into the system’, in the magazine ‘The World’
	His open opposition to the small pox vaccination and his resignation from the editorial post of the magazine, ‘The World’ as a protest to it.

Other than Homoeopathy, he was also a poet and had composed a few poems on his own. He was also particularly fond of the poetries of William Blake.

His death in the year 1931 marked the end of a great era but he will ever remain alive in the Homoeopathic world because of his priceless contributions

Dr. William Earnest Boyd is considered to be a pioneer in the field of Homoeopathy.His era is marked from the year 1891 to 1955.

Dr. Boyd was born on 21st May 1891 in Glasgow. He studied at the Glasgow academy and Glasgow University and worked as a surgeon during the World War I, in the Royal Navy.He developed an interest in Homoeopathy, under the influence of Dr. Gibson Miller and he owed all his initial knowledge to him. He joined the Homoeopathic faculty in the year 1919, and in the year 1920, he was appointed as a physician and radiologist at the Glasgow Homoeopathic hospital.

Dr. Earnest

Boyd was the Founder and the first Director of the Boyd Medical Research Trust Laboratories. He was also a member of numerous societies like the Faraday society, the Royal Philosophical society, Society of Physical medicine- a branch of British Medical Association, The British Institute of Engineers, and the Institute of Radiology. He was a fellow of the Royal society of medicine, Institute of Electronics and a member of the faculty of Homoeopathy

Dr. William Earnest Boyd is considered to be a pioneer in the field of Homoeopathy. His era is marked from the year 1891 to 1955.

Dr. Boyd was born on 21st May 1891 in Glasgow. He studied at the Glasgow academy and Glasgow University and worked as a surgeon during the World War I, in the Royal Navy.

He developed an interest in Homoeopathy, under the influence of Dr. Gibson Miller and he owed all his initial knowledge to him. He joined the Homoeopathic faculty in the year 1919, and in the year 1920, he was appointed as a physician and radiologist at the Glasgow Homoeopathic hospital. Boyd was the Founder and the first Director of the Boyd Medical Research Trust Laboratories. He was also a member of numerous societies like the Faraday society, the Royal Philosophical society, Society of Physical medicine- a branch of British Medical Association, The British Institute of Engineers, and the Institute of Radiology. He was a fellow of the Royal society of medicine, Institute of Electronics and a member of the faculty of Homoeopathy.

His major contributions to the science of Homeopathy are :

Dr. Boyd wrote a lot of papers in the British homoeopathic journal on biochemic and homoeopathic research between the years 1922 and 1954.

In 1936, he published a monograph on 'Low potencies of homoeopathy'.He believed that the power of medicines exists in the 30th potency of mercuric chloride which he proved with the help of his emanometer and thereby supported the clinical insight of Hahnemann.

Boyd proved, with the help of various experimentations that, power released by a drug is a kind of emanation, which could be measured. He said that each homeopathically prepared drug produces some kind of emanation, which acts only on the tissues to which each drug is fitted. He believed that there is a kind of evidence, which suggests that disorganization of a healthy state of the body is due to effects on people of emanations from substances they take, or from sources to which they are exposed.