Joseph D Laurie 1829 - 1865

Joseph D Laurie (?1829 - 1865) MD 1849 was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, graduate of the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, Physician to the Westminster and Lambeth Homeopathic Medical Institution and Dispensary, and Consulting Physician to the Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square. Joseph Laurie was an early member of the British Homeopathic Society.

Joseph Laurie practiced at 12 Lower Berkeley Street, Portman Square, and he graduated in medicine at Giessen in 1840, in homeopathy in 1851 in Pennsylvania.

He was on the Medical Council of the Hahnemann Hospital, the Consulting Physician at the Hahnemann Dispensary, Medical Referee to the Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society (London Branch), a former member of the Hunterian Medical Society Edinburgh, a member of the Hahnemann Medical Society and the Societe Gallicane de Paris and prodigious author.

Joseph Laurie was also a member of the Association for the Protection of Homeopathic Practitioners and Students in 1851. He was a colleague of John Epps and Edward Hamilton at the Westminster and Lambeth Homeopathic Medical Institution and Dispensary in 1850.

A portait entitled ‘The lady of Joseph Laurie’ was mentioned in The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors in 1906.

Joseph Laurie was a student of Paul Francois Curie at the Finsbury Circus Free Dispensary for the Poor in 1837.

Joseph Laurie knew all of the early homeopaths in Britain and America, including the Staff of the Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square which included John Anderson, James Chapman, Edward Charles Chepmell, Paul Francois Curie, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, Thomas Engall, Joseph Hands, Robert Hamilton, Amos Henriques, Charles Hunt, Henry Kelsall, Henry Victor Malan, James John Garth Wilkinson, David Wilson, George Wyld, William Leaf, Christian Karl Josias Bunsen, Thomas Egerton 2nd Earl of Wilton, Robert Grosvenor, Thomas Roupell Everest, Charles Powell Leslie, James More Molyneux, David Wilson, William Henry Ashurst, William Thomas Berger, W A Case, J M Douglas, G H Flatcher, John Fowler, Joseph Glover, Sydney Hanson, Thomas Higgs, T H Johnstone, John Miller, Chas Pasley, Mathias Roth, Frederick Sandoz, W Stephenson, Samuel Sugden, Allan Templeton, Major Tyndale, William Warne, A Wilkinson, S Wilson and many others.

Joseph Laurie was a friend of Joseph Hyppolyte Pulte and Amos Gerald Hull, who recommended William Cullen Bryant to consult Joseph Laurie when he was in London in 1849.

Joseph Laurie’s Obituary is in The British Journal of Homeopathy in 1865.

Joseph D Laurie wrote Elements of Homeopathic Practice of Physic, Homeopathic Domestic Medicine, The Parent’s Guide: Containing the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, An epitome of the ‘Homeopathic domestic medicine’, The Homeopathic Guide, for Family Use, A Few Plain Directions for the Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of British and Asiatic Cholera, and Also Cholerine, and many Journal articles.

Joseph Laurie also edited Boenninghausen’s Therapeutics and Jahr’s Pocket Dictionary and contributed to various homeopathic journals.

Of interest:

David C Laurie MD Edinburgh 1847, LRCS Edinburgh 1847, was a homeopath who practiced at 6 Boyne Terrace, Nottinghill,

William Forbes Lawrie (?1811-?) MD Edinburgh 1838, LRCS Edinburgh 1838, Hydropathic Establishment Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and 23 Argyll Street, Regent Street, London, formerly medical officer to the Houghton District of the Luton Union, contributor to ’On the Water Cure in Typhus Fever’ in the Homeopathic Times, Medical Director of the Metropolitan Cancer Hospital, was a member of the Anti Compulsory Vaccination League in ‘… I am thoroughly convinced that the increase in cancer is due to vaccination…’ (Eleanor McBean, The Poisoned Needle, (Health Research Books, 1 Jun 1993). Page 42.) (George Atkin, The British and foreign homœopathic medical directory and record, (Groombridge & Sons, 1855). Page 36) William Forbes Lawrie was also a client of Elizabeth (Eliza) Hetty Hall Wagstaff (David Jones, The autobiography of David Jones, with an exposition of medical politics and sidelights on the medical profession: Some facts about homœopathy, mesmerism, local treatment, and the author’s notable discovery of the spray remedy, curing bladder and prostate diseases in cases regarded as incurable, (Mitchell, 1907). Page 37). [NB: David Jones (?-?) was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy and paid the usual price of censure in The Lancet!! ‘… The complaint has relation to the medical practice carried on by an unregistered person named David Jones at 15, Welbeck-street, and 10, Dean-street. Soho, and by the complaint it is alleged” 1. That (i. G. Jones, being a duly qualified… (Thomas Wakley, The Lancet, Volume 1, (J. Onwhyn, 1896). Page 1683)…’] Also recorded as William Forbes Laurie: MD Edinburgh 1838, LRCS Edinburgh 1838, LSA London 1838, was a homeopath who practiced at Ichnield House, Dunstable, Bedfordshire,