Timothy Field Allen

Timothy Field Allen
1837-1902

born in 1837, Vermont, studied medicine at New York University in 1861 and served as a surgeon during the Civil War. The encounter with the homeopath Carroll Dunham, during the 1867 diphtheria epidemia in New York, was a turning point for Allen, who studied homeopathy under his guidance for three months before following Dr P.Wells’ teachings, in Brooklyn.

In 1871, he was appointed professor of Materia Medica at the New York Homeopathic Medical College, of which he became president in 1882. Between 1874 and 1879, the ten volumes of his Encycopedia of Pure Materia Medica were published. Allen’s work originality resides in its use of the provers’ own words to describe the symptoms experienced during provings, thus avoiding interpretations and distortions.

While Dr Allen dedicated most of his life to homeopathy, he was also an accomplished musician and a keen botanist. His work is still considered as crucial for homeopathy and remains a major reference for homeopaths worldwide.