Edward Charles Chepmell 1820 – 1885

Edward Charles Chepmell MD Edin. 1820 – 1885 born Germany? and lived in Middlesex? Physician to the Islington Homeopathic Dispensary at 20 Claremont Place, New Road, Angel Islington, and Physician to the Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square, Resident Physician at the London Homeopathic Medical Institution at 17 Hanover Square in 1845, member of the Medical Council of the London Homeopathic Hospital, member of the British Homeopathic Society in 1847, and an Honorary Member of the British Homeopathic Association in1849, and member of the Hahnneman Medical Society at 39 Bloomsbury Square, and member of the Hahnemann Publishing Society.

Chepmell was a Resident Physician at a small hospital at Paul Francois Curie’s house, alongside Barry, Sydney Hanson, William Leaf, Victor Massol, Jas Bell Metcalfe, John Ozanne, William Parsons,

Edward Charles Chepmell practiced at 13 Maddox Street, Bond Street in 1851 and at 22 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, London in 1859. He also visited Paris in 1850, where he treated several cases, and in the same year, he attended the Homeopathic Congress in Cheltenham.

On 22.1.1852, The Homeopathic Times records a schism in the Hahnemann Hospital, caused by an advertisement placed for Clinical lecturers in the local newspapers, and the appointment of Paul Francois Curie andAmos Henriques.

These appointments led to the resignation of John Chapman, Edward Charles Chepmell, Joseph Hands and David Wilson. The grounds for contention were that the Hahnemann Hospital was founded to eliminate medical cliques, and to promote medical equality. It was felt that by awarding Paul Francois Curie andAmos Henriques the title of Clinical Lecturer and Professor, this rule was breached.

The Association for the Protection of Homeopathic Practitioners and Students had just been founded in 1851, and its members included George Atkin, Francis Black, John Chapman, Paul Francois Curie, John James Drysdale, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, George Fearon, Edward Hamilton, William Hering, C. B. Kerr, Joseph Laurie, John Ozanne, John Rutherford Russell, David Wilson and many others.

John Chapman, Edward Charles Chepmell, Joseph Hands and David Wilson felt strongly enough about the issue of medical cliques and elitism to resign, but the overwhelming feeling of the rest of the staff was in full support of these principles. Apparently, there had been some ill feeling inherited from the earlier establishment under William Leaf, and as Paul Francois Curie andAmos Henriques were not prepared to abandon their titles as Clinical lecturers, a schism occured.

Edward Charles Chepmell was active in the foundation of the London Homeopathic Hospital, which was established at 32 Golden Square in 1851. He was a was a colleague of Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, the first President of the British Homeopathic Society, and Marmaduke Blake Sampson, the Chairman of the British Homeopathic Association, and many other homeopaths.

Edward Chepmell was present at the Festival in aid of the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1858 with many Aristocratic and minor gentry patrons attending, alongside Dr. Ayerst, William Bayes, Hugh Cameron, William Vallancy Drury, George Napoleon Epps, Arthur Guinness, Edward Hamilton, Frantz Hartmann, Amos Henriques, Joseph Kidd, Thomas Robinson Leadam, J Bell Metcalfe, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, Henry Reynolds, John Rutherford Russell, Charles Caulfield Tuckey, George Wyld, Stephen Yeldham, and many others.

Edward Charles Chepmell was also a colleague of William Edward Ayerst, Hugh Cameron, John Chapman, Matthew James Chapman, Paul Francois Curie, William Vallancy Drury, George Napoleon Epps, James Epps, John Epps, James Manby Gully, Edward Hamilton, George Calvert Holland, Richard Hughes, Joseph Kidd, Thomas Robinson Leadam, Victor Massol, J Bell Metcalfe, Samuel Thomas Partridge, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, Henry Reynolds, John Rutherford Russell, David Wilson, Stephen Yeldham and many others.

Edward Charles Chepmell died while travelling in Florence in 1885 and his obituary is in The British Homeopathic Review and The Monthly Homeopathic Review in 1885. The Lancet also published his will and obituary in 1885.

Edward Charles Chepmell wrote A Domestic Homeopathy, Hints for the Practical Study of the Homeopathic Method, and many other articles and publications.

Of interest:

Harriet Chepmell ?a relative of Edward Charles Chepmell, – in 1850, Harriet used Charles William Luther‘s book Allopathy and Homeopathy or the usual medicine and the Hahnemannian doctrine to cure herself of calomel poisoning which ’caused a sensation on the island of Guernsey (where Edward Chepmell’s colleague John Ozanne practiced) (see Rhoda Ui Chonaire in her article The Luther Legacy: homeopathy in Ireland in the 19th Century in the The Journal of the Irish Society of Homeopaths Anniversary Issue October 2010 pages 17 – 24).

H L M Chepmell is mentioned in The concluding task of the disciples of homeopathy in 1849. (?Havilland Le Mesurier Chepmell?)