| Presented by Sylvain Cazalet | ||
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In 1835 Andrew Jackson was President of the United States. We lit our houses with whale-oil lamps, travelled by stagecoach from town to town and cooked our meals on open hearths. Life expectancy was about 40 years for women and 38 years for men. In 1835 Constantin Hering, the father of American homeopathy, was practising in Philadelphia and Hans Burch Gram in New York. | |
Dr Hering was one of the founders of the first American homeopathic academy (Homeopathic Medical College), where instruction was given in German. In the same year William Radde Senior in Philadelphia and William Radde Junior in New York ran firms that would later become part of the pharmaceutical works of Boericke & Tafel. Their advertisement in Hering's book "The Homoepathist or Domestic Physician" offers the reader the following: "All homeopathic works as well as homeopathic pocket pharmacies, prepared by skilled hands and neatly arranged." In 1848 Hering founded the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, which later became the Hahnemann Medical College, the nation's leading homeopathy training institution. |
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In 1849 a cholera epidemic swept the nation. Because homeopathic physicians obtained better results, many conventional doctors also adopted homeopathic methods. At the same time homeopathy, because of its scientific foundations in experimental pharmacology, exerted a strong attraction on intellectuals. |
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In 1853 Dr Hering enlisted Francis E. Boericke and Adolph J. Tafel to collaborate in the manufacture and sale of homeopathic medicines. Ten years later Dr Boericke acquired the Radde drug manufacturing concerns in Philadelphia and New York. By that time there were already over 2,400 homeopathic physicians in the United States, over 700 in New York and more than 325 in Pennsylvania. To keep pace with the steady growth of homeopathic practice, Boericke & Tafel, in addition to their two existing homeopathic manufacturing operations in New York City and Philadelphia, founded further homeopathic pharmacies and pharmaceutical establishments in New Orleans, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Chicago and Cincinnati. |
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As pharmacists Boericke & Tafel had the privilege of supplying the founders and pioneers of homeopathy, among them Christian Hering and James Tyler Kent. |
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In a letter dated 30 July 1903 Kent wrote to another physician and recommended B & T's "Skinner potencies". "I am the one who urged the firm Boericke & Tafel to employ the Skinner potency machine ... I possess a complete set of Skinner potencies which work very well - I know how they are made." |
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Boericke & Tafel also hold by far the record as publishers. Boericke & Tafel were at that time responsible for the production of over a hundred titles, roughly eighty-five percent of all homeopathic books published in the United States. They also published the American homeopathic pharmacopoeia, the sixth edition of Hahnemann's Organon of the Healing Art (translated by William Boericke) and Boericke's Materia Medica with Repertory, which today in the USA is the standard materia medica and an essential component of most homeopathic computer repertorisation programmes. | |
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From 1915 the combined efforts of the American Medical Association led to a steady decline in the number of homeopathy schools, homeopathic physicians and homeopathic pharmacies and pharmaceutical firms. In this hopeless situation homeopathy in the United States almost entirely disappeared from the scene. Fortunately Boericke & Tafel remedies had already earned an international reputation for purity, quality and effectiveness, so that export business was sufficient to secure the company's economic survival despite the sharply declining trade in the USA. |
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In the 1980s and 1990s growing interest in the environment, natural products and individual responsibility for one's own health led to a renaissance of homeopathy. |
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| The number of homeopathic physicians rose again, working groups formed, naturopathic medical colleges and academies offered courses in homeopathy and homeopathic medicines became available nationwide in health-food shops and a small number of pharmacies. The Food and Drug Administration issued a "Compliance Policy Guide" for the manufacture and marketing of homeopathic medicines. Several European homeopathic pharmaceutical companies sought to enter the US market. | ||
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In 1987 Boericke & Tafel became a member of Hom. Int. (Homeopathy International), a worldwide association of homeopathic companies that sponsors basic and clinical research, provides continuing education programmes in homeopathy for professionals and laypeople and supports development programmes. With its state-of-the-art technology and highly developed facilities for the production of homeopathic remedies, Boericke & Tafel, America's oldest pharmaceutical company, has combined the best of both continents... |
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Copyright © Sylvain Cazalet 2001 >> to the original article |
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