HOM(EOPATHY IN NEW-YORK,
AND THE LATE
ABRAHAM D. WILSON, A M., M. D.
BY HIS EARLY FRIEND
JOHN F. GRAY.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHtED BY REQUEST OF THE HOMCEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETIES OF THE
COUNTY AND STATE OF NEW-YORK.
William S. Dorr, Printer, 101 Nassau Street.
1865.









ADDRESS.
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Society:
TWO years ago to-night, at the request of the
societies of New-York and Brooklyn, I had the
honor to recite to you the unpublished details of
the first epoch of Homoeopathy in America. It
began with the advent of Dr. GRAM in 1826; during which year he printed and distributed his own
correct but infelicitous translation of Hahneman's
Spirit of the Homoeopathic System of Medicine;
and it ended with the appearance of the English
versions of the Organon and Jahr's Manual of the
Materia Medica, which, revised somewhat by HERING and HULL, were reprinted at Allentown and
here about 1837 to 1841. As during this period of
twelve years in which Homoeopathy could only be
studied and tested by German physicians, or by



sensation respecting the new practice in a wide circle of the community at the time. His father, an
eminent Scottish scholar, was Professor of the Greek
and Latin languages in Columbia College at the time
of his birth, and for many years after. His brother,
the late GEORGE WILSON, an accomplished counsellor-at-law in the city, who was twenty years his
senior, and therefore able to aid him socially, took
unwearied pains in his behalf. Moreover, this brother, as WILSON told me not long before his own
death, earnestly interested himself, after their venerable father's departure, in his culture in ancient
and modern literatures and philosophy, Whatsoe.
ver the elder brother could accomplish for him in
society, and in aid of his professional career, was
certainly effected with gratifying success,
Dr.WILsoN had also the great advantages in that
day resulting from the personal friendship and pat.
ronage of his illustrious preceptor in Medicine, the
late Dr. DAVID HOSACK, in whose private classes he
was a diligent pupil throughout. Dr. HosAcK had
himself received his classical training, in early life,
from WILsON's father, to whose memory he was most



13
greatly increased the circle of his personal friends.
Such was the esteem in which that honorable society held him, that, on the occasion of his demise, a
Lodge of Mourning for him was convened in Dodworth Hall, in which a eulogy was pronounced and
afterwards printed by his lodge, in commemoration
of his meritorious relations with that order and with
society; the only instance of the kind that has come
under my notice. Besides the proofs cited of WILSON'S strong social position, I beg to recall to your
memories the impressive scene at the church-edifice
where his obsequies occurred. We all witnessed
with grateful emotions the deep earnestness with
which the clergy and the immense concourse of citizens testified, by worshiping-rites and by most touching panegyric, to Dr. WILSON'S manifold worth of
professional and personal character among the people, and especially in that his hereditary denomination of Christians.
With these his advantages of education, which he
nowise neglected in his youth,. and this his felicity
of social position, greatly enhanced by an early and
ever happy marriage, WILSON made the acquaint



20
cing the profounder shades of trance.  In this
great topic, which I think will at no very distant
day engage the unreserved attention of all scientific
bodies, and which ought rather to be called PsychoDynamics than Animal Magnetism, GRAM and his
coterie were thirty years ago far in advance of the
experimenters of REICHENBACH'S school, and of the
avowed Spiritualists of the present day.
Although WILSON, HULL and myself did not in
latter years fully coincide with GRAM and HAHNEMAN
in reference to the number or classes of morbid conditions in which this agency ought to be used, inasmuch as we used it with excellent results in a wider
range of cases, and also sometimes to the extent of
producing complete anesthesia, yet we agreed to the
last of WILSON'S days that, as it ever is a spiritual
force interiorly, it should be applied only for healing
the sick, never for pastime or mere amusement, and
always under the direction of an enlightened physician. The irresponsible and indiscriminate use of
this power, so generally in vogue at the present day,
is greatly to be deplored; and I hope the physicians
of our school (who certainly all of them ought to



23
In the third year of this unwelcome trial of WILSON'S fortitude, the Asiatic cholera made its first appearance here, and the success which attended our
treatment of it, brought to him and the rest of us
some mitigation of our losses and sacrifices. Dr.
CHINNING, and many other old-school physicians,
visited our offices and met us in practice to witness
our results. Very many of them added camphor
(the least important and the least homoeopathic to
cholera of all our remedies) to their own compound
prescriptions. Our status with the profession was
for a year or two less acerb and troublesome, and
we soon after began to receive scanty accessions of
patients and families in place of the flocks that had
left us.
WILSON'S second contribution to Homoeopathy was
as severe a test of his uprightness as the first was of
his fortitude and perseverance under trials. He felt
bound to give all the patients that came to him,
after the affluent tide began, the fullest benefit of
Homoeopathy; and to this end he brought them to
GRAM in every case of importance, and also in all
other cases when his registration of symptoms did



27
influence or numbers, as it possesses here in NewYork.
Without these men and their benefactive lives,
and without the societies and movements inaugurated in the first or latent epoch here-which, in 1840,
culminated in the appearance of the Homoeopathic
Examiner by HULL, and in the Society, partly lay
and partly professional, of which our BRYANT was
the last President-the later and apparently more efficacious means of your success could not have been in
your hands. Thus, for instance, the American Institute of Homoeopathy, founded in 1843 by my
personal efforts, the incorporation of County and
State Societies by the Legislature, and the founding
of Infirmaries and Dispensaries through the action
of others among you, could not have occurred.
Forget not your beginnings; honor your deceased
predecessors; for they were and are worthy of your
respect, nay, of your veneration! Our status is with
and from the people; and they by hundreds-nay,
by many thousands-remember these skillful, good
physicians, and receive us with glad confidence on
account of the cures they effected in their families
a generation ago.



29
been, in certis unitas; in dubiis libertas; in omnibus
caritas. Of the large number of students who have
graduated from my office, several of whom I have
the happiness to meet at this festive board to-night,
each one will testify to the entire freedom accorded
to them on the question of doses, dilutions and repetitions. Several of them indeed, especially those
who studied HAHNEMAN in the German, left me believers in his posology, and remained so for various
periods of time. Of this class of my pupils I now
recall Drs. HULL, METCALF and GILBERT, and our present colleague Dr. QUIN. Neither GRAM, WILSON
nor myself ever denied the efficiency of highly
attenuated drugs, nor were we justified by our
school of personal discipline in deriding the sincere convictions of others on any topic, either in
medicine, religion or political science; and, accordingly, the gentlemen who favored higher attenuations than we considered it best for us to use in our
practice, were ever as thoroughly and cordially recognized and consulted with by us as to choice of
remedies, as were those who agreed with us in regard to doses. There ought to be liberty to differ



31
eclecticism in the elements of these two systems;
no middle course between a Method in the Art of
Healing founded on purely scientific observation,
and one resting ex professo on assumptions respecting life and power essences. These views, founded
in and accepted from HAHNEMAN'S great essay, " Spirit
of Homoeopathy," came to us in 1826-30; that is
to say, to myself first, WILSON next, then to HULL,
and lastly to CHANNING in'32, through the translation and commentaries of the good and great pioneer,
GRAM; and none of us ever deviated from them, or
wavered in supporting true Homceopathy. I have
been thus careful to recite the details of convictions
and practices in the early days and among the genuine pioneers here in New-York, for reasons which
are obvious enough to those who knew the founders,
and their merits and sacrifices, but which Time and
Justice, through some of my faithful and learned
survivors, must disclose and elucidate.
The learned propagandist of Homoeopathy in other
cities, or in foreign lands, may perhaps feel surprise
at your dedicating a considerable share of this Annual Meeting, sacred to its origin and diffusion, to



friends, his country, and his race, each and all, infinitely more than he loved himself. He drew near
especially to the weak and defenceless and downtrodden. To such his strong body, his strong powers
of sympathy, his copious pecuniary income, were a
wall of support, each as its resources were needed.
As in the introduction of Homoeopathy, so in every
other phase and aspect of his benefactive life, and
through each day of that whole life, his instinctive
rule of action was well-being for others, without taking
thought for his own self-hood either of to-day or to.
morrow. In my long intercourse with him, I knew
many, very many, shining instances of his lifting
up the children of want and sorrow; and now, since
his removal, I come quite frequently upon old cases
of the kind from the lips of his benficiaries, which
were sealed during his life-time.
WILSON was, by the gift of his Creator, born on
that plane of uses which most men attain to only
after long conflicts with the composite forms of self*
ishness, by sad experiences, and by palpable throes
of the inner life. He loved the works of fraternity}
and he did them always, and to all who needed