August Karl Gustav Bier 1861 – 1949

August Karl Gustav Bier 1861 – 1949 was German surgeon and the pioneer of spinal anaesthesia.

Bier was unusual for being very open minded in his support of homeopathy, even though he came across the same sort of ‘religious cult‘ in science we encounter today. As late as 1925, August Bier was censured by the Berlin medical profession for attempting to rehabilitate Samuel Hahnemann‘s reputation.

Bier kept in close contact with Hugo Paul Friedrich Schulz and his work on hormesis, and Bier went on to found the Society for Examination of Homeopathic Drugs.

Bier wrote:

“Above all, I am of the opinion that no one should judge homeopathy, who has not tried homeopathic remedies or who has failed by reading to familiarise himself with the theory of homeopathy.

“I advise my colleagues who want to do the latter, not to start with Samuel Hahnemann‘s writings, but first to study the excellent work by Richard Haehl, and at least a few works by Hugo Paul Friedrich Schulz…”

Bier was so versatile as a doctor that he did not dwell solely on surgical problems and he became extremely interested in homeopathy and he demanded that regular medicine became more open to it, in which view he was supported by Erwin Liek, Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Kapferer and Mummert, and also Edward Hitschmann, whose grandfather was a homeopath, and Heinrich Meng who became the Chief Physician of the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, which was itself founded by a homeopath and now houses a Homeopathic Archive.

Hugo Paul Friedrich Schulz and Rudolf Arndt, Carl Ludwig Schleich and Hans Driesch and many others all incorporated homeopathic ideology into their work at this time.

Bier’s researches into homeopathy led him to propose three fundamental points, the single remedy, the similar remedy and the minimum dose.

Bier recommended books by Richard Haehl Samuel Hahnemann: his life and work, Hugo Paul Friedrich Schulz‘s essays and Stauffer’s Homeopathic Materia Medica and Homeotherapy and Homeopathy Explained by John Henry Clarke, The Case for Homeopathy by Charles Edwin Wheeler, and Materia Medica by Edwin Awdas Neatby and Thomas George Stonham.

Bier praises his publisher Hans Luft, who published Bier’s own books on homeopathy A Physician’s Thoughts on Medicine and What Should be our Attitude Towards Homeopathy?

Bier also said:

“Microbes are of secondary importance in diseases; a healthy individual does not become infected.”

August Bier wrote Homöopathie harmonische Ordnung und der Heilkunde (Homeopathy and harmonious order of the medicine) with homeopath Oswald Schlegel.

Of interest:

August Bier also pioneered sustainable forests and is also known as the forest doctor. His son Heinrich continued his father’s work.

NB: It was obvious after a few Google clicks that most of the stuff on Bier and homeopathy is in German and has not yet been translated into English. Maybe some German homeopath could offer a great deal more information on this fascinating man?