The Midwest pioneer, his ills, cures, & doctors - University Library ...

One of the major desires
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of the Chicago homeopaths
was to establish a school for the propagation of the faith.
The first attempt proved abortive, for the charter of the
proposed institution which was sent to the legislature in
1853 was carelessly mislaid by the representative. Failure
to locate the missing document led to the formulation of
a new one, in the law ofSce, says tradition, of A. Lincoln.
In January, 1855, the Hahnemann Medical College was
incorporated, but no faculty was organized until five years
later.
Coinciding with the efforts of the homeopaths to establish
the school was the foundation of other institutions
necessary for their practice. Obviously a special pharmacy
for the dispensation of homeopathic dosages was an essential.
The first one was established in 1844 at the office of
Dr. David Sheppard Smith. Ten years later a hospital was
created by popular subscription secured by Dr. Shipman
after a gift of $1000 annually for its maintenance had been
promised by a Mrs. H. Knight. Financial difficulties forced
the suspension of the hospital in 1857. During the twentyeight
months of its existence, according to its reports, this
institution set an enviable record of only nine deaths among
the three hundred twenty-one patients admitted.
In 1857 began the open hostilities between the homeopaths
and the regulars. Trouble arose as the result of a
petition to the Common Council by leading Chicago citizens
who requested use of a portion of the newly created City
Hospital for the treatment of patients according to the
homeopathic school of practice. The regulars objected
strenuously, both to the ruling of the Council which
allotted the use of one-fourth of the hospital to the homeopaths,
and to the name "Allopaths"—hterally "other
diseases"— given to them to distinguish them from their
rivals. A war of pamphlets ensued in which everyone
denounced everyone else. The board took refuge in inaction,
and as a consequence the City Hospital remained
unprovided with furniture as well as physicians. Eventually
the regulars indirectly won the struggle by obtaining