Post by Ontario College of Homeopathic Medicine

Clemens von Bönninghausen, born in Münster in ‪1785, was described by Dr.‬ Samuel Hahnemann as “my favourite pupil.” By training Bönninghausen was a lawyer. He was also a polymath, fascinated by every academic discipline that caught his attention, so that he developed a wide-ranging expertise in a number of subjects. Bönninghausen believed that he had developed, a fatal case of tuberculosis, which induced him to write farewell letters to his friends, one of whom, a Dr. August Weihe, though unknown to Bönninghausen, was a homeopath, and who in 1827 suggested pulsatilla as the appropriate homeopathic remedy for his ailing friend. Sure enough, the treatment worked, Bönninghausen became an enthusiast of homeopathy, and his great organizing efforts were turned from law to botany and finally to homeopathy. Interestingly, in honour of his extensive work in botany, three plants are named after him. By DB, OCHM student