Simon Felix Camille Croserio 1786 - 1855

Simon Felix Camille Croserio 1786

• 1855 was a French orthodox physician, and Physician to the Sardinian Embassy in Paris, who converted to homeopathy.

Croserio met Antoine Henri Petroz in 1833 who interested him in homeopathy, and after he had consulted Samuel Hahnemann for treatment, he became a student of Samuel Hahnemann.

Simon Croserio went on to become the founder member of the Paris Homeopathic Society and the President of the Gallic Homeopathic Society, President of the old Homeopathic Society, and  President of the Hahnemannian Society of Paris.

Croserio taught at the Paris College of homeopathy, running the homeopathic clinic, alongside Gottlieb Heinrich Georg Jahr, and Benoit Jules Mure.

Simon Croserio defended Melanie Hahnemann at her trial in 1847 alongside Deleau.

Simon Croserio was a colleague of Clemens Maria Franz Baron von Boenninghausen, Paul Francois Curie, Gottlieb Heinrich Georg Jahr, Benoit Jules Mure, Charles Neidhard, Antoine Henri Petroz, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, and Leon Francois Adolphe Simon.

Simon Croserio was the homeopathic physician of Niccolo Paganini.

Dr. Croserio’s name is on the Frederick Hervey Foster Quin list of 1834 as a practitioner of Homoeopathy in Paris.

The British journal says: “The immediate disciples and friends of Hahnemann are dropping off one by one. Not a year elapses that we have not the painful duty to perform of recording the decease of some veteran homoeopathist whose name is intimately associated with the rise, extension, and triumph of the new system of medicine.

“The subject of the present memoir, however, does not exactly belong to the class of Samuel Hahnemann’s disciples, for his conversion to Homeopathy only dates from some twenty years ago.

“But his advanced years, his previous high reputation, his eventful life, his more than youthful zeal and industry in the propagation of Samuel Hahnemann’s doctrines, and his friendship with their venerable author, served to render him conspicuous among the adherents of the new school, and we feel in recording his death that Homeopathy has lost one of its most eminent partisans.

“Simon Felix Camille Croserio was born at Condova, in Savoy, on the 16th of November, 1786. He died at Paris the 13th of April, 1855. He was consequently in the 69th year of his age.

“The following particulars of his life we borrow from the pages of our Gallican contemporary, to which, when alive, he was a contributor:

“He early evinced a great aptitude for work and a zealous desire to do his duty. At school he gained the love and respect of his masters and fellow pupils, and obtained high honors of scholarship.

“Having early devoted himself to medical studies, he pursued them with such success that at the age of twenty he obtained, by competition, the post of demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Turin.

“However, he had soon afterwards the mortification to find his career in that way brought to an untimely close, as he was forced by the conscription to enter the army. It was not long before he got the appointment of Sub Assistant surgeon, his commission bearing the date of 1806.

“On the 12th of June, 1808, he obtained the title of Doctor of Surgery from the University of Turin. As Assistant Surgeon in the Imperial Guard he made the campaign of Germany in 1809, those of Spain in 1810 and 1811, that of Russia in 1812, those of Saxony in 1813 and 1814 and the campaign of France the same year.

“In the disastrous campaign of 1814 he was wounded, and had his left leg broken. He was made Surgeon Major of the Old Guard in 1815.

“After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, he abandoned the army, and soon established himself at Paris. Although a native of Piedmont, he did not require any permission in order to practice medicine in France, because when he took his degree at Turin, that city was under the Government of France.

“Immediately after the revolution of 1830 he got himself naturalized as a Frenchman. Having witnessed a cure effected by Samuel Hahnemann in 1833, he was so struck by it that he determined to study the Organon, the only work of Samuel Hahnemann at that time translated into French. The perusal of this aphoristic work made him anxious to become acquainted with the instruments by which Homeopathy effected its marvellous cures.

“In order the better to be able to comprehend the ideas of Samuel Hahnemann, and to understand the exact signification of the symptoms produced on the healthy human being, he resolved to devote himself to the study of the German language, and it was in the pages of the Materia Medica Pura that, without a master, he acquired a knowledge of this language.

“By day occupied with the care of his patients, he spent his nights in translating and learning the _Materia Medica Pura_. His excessive application to his new studies and sitting up late at night affected his sight.

“The success he obtained in his application of Homeopathy caused him to embrace its doctrines with enthusiasm. In order to propagate it among students of medicine he requested, in 1835, the authorization to deliver in Paris a course of lectures on Homeopathy. He was, however, unable to obtain the permission.

“Croserio was a studious man; he worked hard and wrote a great deal. In conjunction with Gottlieb Heinrich Georg Jahr and Leon Francois Adolphe Simon he edited the Annales de la Médecine Homéopathique. He wrote many articles for the Archives de la Médecine Homoeopathique. His fertile pen supplied a great number of papers to the Journal de la Société hahnemannienne de Paris, to which he also contributed translations from the German, Italian, and Spanish journals.

“He published an excellent article there on the treatment of gonorrhoea. Among his other works we may mention the following: On Homoeopathic Medicine, On the diet to be followed during the treatment 1835, On the advantages Homoeopathy offers to society 1835, Statistics of Homoeopathic Medicine 1848, A Manual of Homoeopathic Medicine 1850.

“In the last named work, the author, who had been long actively engaged in midwifery practice, has consigned the results of his great experience of the Homeopathic system, as applied to this branch of medicine. This work is well known to most of our readers through the American translation.

“Dr. Croserio suffered in his health from his intense application to the study and practice of Homeopathy. For a long time he had been subject to a chronic pulmonary catarrh, with much oppression of the breathing, and sometimes fits of suffocation.

“In 1853 he developed diabetes mellitus, of which he cured himself; but in consequence of the fatigue he underwent in the treatment of the cholera patients of 1854, he had an attack of cholerine. The most serious symptoms were subdued: but he would take no care of himself, nor give himself the necessary time to recover.

“He continued to be a valetudinarian, was very much debilitated, and looked much older than he actually was. Madame Croserio tried to persuade him to go into the country to recruit his health, but this he steadily refused to do, saying, that if he quitted Paris he would be deserting before the enemy, and betraying his patients; that a soldier should die at his host in the breach.

“And there, indeed, he died; for in spite of his sufferings and his weakness, he continued to give advice to patients until the last moment. Death was the only termination of his labors, and of his devotion to science and to humanity.

“Towards the end of his life he became so debilitated that his voice could scarcely be heard. Some days before his death, he was informed that it was the intention of the Gallican Society to offer him the title of Honorary President, but he did not survive long enough to receive the proposed honor.

“He was accompanied to his grave by a large number of his friends and patients. The Rev. M. Coquerel, who performed the religious ceremonies, made an oration at the grave, in which he gave a sketch of the labors and good qualities of the deceased.

“Although he had been married thirty five years (Simon Croserio married Amelie Marie Dominique Lamande in 1824), he had no family: but having been appointed guardian to a young orphan girl, a distant relative, he adopted her, and brought he up as his own child until she married.

“Croserio’s ardent and philanthropic disposition rejoiced to record the progress of Homeopathy. He desired to spread the knowledge of its truths, and loved to lint it within the reacts of the poorer classes. He was physician to some benevolent societies, and to the Maternal Society of Paris. He was physician to the Protestant Provident Association, and likewise to the Establishment of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. For a long time he was physician to the Sardinian Embassy.

“Being master of several languages, he had a large correspondence with foreign Homeopathists. He was member of many learned societies at home and abroad. He belonged to the old Gallican Homeopathic Society; had been President of the old Homeopathic Society; and afterwards President of the Hahnemannian Society of Paris. He was also corresponding or Honorary Member of various foreign homeopathic societies.

“At his death he was an active member of the present Gallican Society. The following appears in The Homeopathic Klinik:

‘Dr. Croserio was born in Condova, Savoy, in 1786, and he died April 13, 1855, in Paris, in the 60th year of his life. Before he had completed his studies in Turin, he was conscripted as a soldier, and entered the army as sub assistant surgeon. He remained in the army till 1814, serving in the campaigns in Germany, Spain and Russia.

‘Yet he found time in 1812 to acquire his diploma as doctor. After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, Croserio left the military career in which he had advanced to the position of surgeon major, and he settled as physician in Paris.

‘Here, in 1833, he became acquainted with Homeopathy through Antoine Henri Petroz, and commenced to study it with great zeal, and in order to be able to go to the fountain head, he studied German with great perseverance.

‘He became a faithful and zealous adherent and apostle of the new doctrine, for which lie did much not only by writing but also by his practical activity till the end of his life.

‘All the French homeopathic journals contain a number of excellent articles from his pen, and for some time he himself, together with Gottlieb Heinrich Georg Jahr and Leon Francois Adolphe Simon, edited the Annales de la Médecine Homéopathique.

‘He also printed several independent works, of which we only will mention a few of the later ones, La Statistique de la Médecine Homéopathique 1848, and Manuel Homéopathique d’ Obstétrique 1850.

‘Croserio was suffering for a long time of chronic catarrh, and for a long time also from diabetes mellitus, but he seems to have recovered from it, but seems to have been weakened and to have grown aged from it; when the epidemic of cholera of 1854 came, and with his extended practice laid upon him double and excessive exertions.

‘But in spite of all the advice of his friends, he would not spare himself nor retire for a while to the country, for, he said a soldier must not leave his post, and should rather die in the breach.

‘Although extremely exhausted, and at last so weak that he could hardly make himself understood, Croserio did hot allow himself to be interrupted in the practice of his profession until he succumbed to his exertions, and he gave his medical advice to those who called on him almost to his last moment.

‘He especially always had a tender care for the poor, and he was for a long time physician in several charitable institutions and societies. He was also the physician of the Sardinian Embassy.

‘He spoke and wrote several languages and corresponded with a number of well known Homeopaths in all countries; he also was a member of many homeopathic societies and unions in France and in foreign countries.

(Zeit. f. Hom. Klinik, vol. 4, p. 168. _Pierre Augustus Rapou, vol. I, p. 155, vol. 2, p. 559. Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 13, p. 474.) This biography is extracted from the book of Thomas Lindsley Bradford (1847 – 1918) : The Pioneers of Homeopathy 678 pages, Boericke Tafel (Philadelphia, 1897) Pages 212 to 213.)_

Croserio wrote a biography of Jenny Poinsard d’Hericourt in Critique de Manuel Homeopathique.