The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

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wreck of his property went with him to Chillicothe, Ohio, where he remained some three years
engaged in teaching, and where he entered the ministry of the M. E. Church. His wife dying at
Chillicothe, he returned to Auburn in 1S41, bringing his infant son with him. His first intinerant
year in the ministry was at Worthington, Ohio, his second at Cayuga, N. Y,., his third at Cortlandville,
N. Y., his fourth at Cayuga, N. Y., and his fifth at New Hartford, N. Y. He was
ordained as Deacon at Wilksburg in 1843, and as Elder at Utica, N. Y., in 1845; located as a
minister in 1846. He is credited with having been a ready speaker of engaging manner and
address, alwa3-s popular with the people, and the work of the church always prospering in his
hands. Yet the trammels of the itinerancy were irksome, the pay was meagre and the outlook
forbidding. His entire five years' work in the ministry did not return him, in all, $500 in money,
and his living was eked out by his medical practice ainong the people. Such practice was
constantly exciting the comments and evil criticism of his ministeral brethren. His itinerant
experience in practice and preaching was often singular, and many interesting details could be
given did space permit.
In 1S44 he removed to Utica, N. Y., and united with his father, Dr. Erastus Humphreys,
in the practice of medicine. At Utica he devoted himself afresh to the study of medicine, under
the direction of his father. Since 1S40 he had been pushing his investigations in the then new
system of Homeopathy; to this end, first learning the French and then the German language. At
that period there was almost literally nothing in the English language on the subject. His knowl-
edge of the subject in those languages gave him great advantages, and his practice of nine years
at Utica made him literally master of the situation, having at its close the most extensive and
lucrative practice in the city. The winters of 1848, '49 and '50 were passed in Philadelphia, at
the Pennsylvania Homeopathic Medical College, and in very intimate relations with the renowned
Dr. Constantine Hering, from whom he received that personal instruction, encouragement and
direction which were in many ways of inestimable value to mm. He received his degree of
Doctor of Medicine, and as Doctor of Homeopathic Medicine in 1850, from the college above
mentioned.
At Utica his labors were characteristic, besides a large practice, he was constantly engaged
dn literary and medical writing. He issued, in connection with his father, a series of " Tracts for
the Times," elucidating the new doctrine of homeopathy. He wrote while there his "Cholera
and its Homeopathic Treatment," and a monograph on Dysentery, and other small works. But
perhaps his most important labor was the "Proving of the Apis INIelliffica, or poison of theHoney
Bee." This work occupied his spare time and attention from 1848 to 1852. There was nothing
tefore known of the Therapeutic value of this poison. He procured the living bees through his
office-assistant, George Washburn, extracted the poison by putting them in a wide mouth bottle,
shaking them until enraged, and then pouring alcohol over them, and so forming the mother
tincture of the virus, and with this preparation, both in its original form and in dilutions, instituted
a series of experiments upon himself, his wik, students and partners in his office, and upon
friends, for two years, and then, at a meeting of the Central New York Homeopathic Medical
Society, gave an address upon the subject and the importance and mode of medical provings.
He distributed the medicine to the physicians present, and subsequently gathered from them and
from all sources, both the symptoms elicited and the cures made, and finally published the
monograph in 1852, under the title of "Proving of the Apis Mellifiica, or poison of the Honey
Eee." Dr. Hering afterwards enlarged the work by adding the recorded results of "Bee Stings,"
and published the whole as a most important addition to the " Americanische Artzneiprufengen."
Dr. Humphreys' original proving, giving the profession one of its most valuable remedies
for dropsies, diphtheria, angina, malignant scarlet fever, and varied forms of kidney diseases,
ophthalmias, cerebral and pulmonary congestions, is perhaps the most important contribution
made to the Homeopathic Materia Medica in America in the Homeopathic school, and is entirely