Claude Buchanan Kerr (1867-1925)

Claude Buchanan Kerr (1867-1925) (sometimes spelt Ker) was a British orthodox physician born in Cheltenham, who converted to homeopathy. Kerr was a member of the British Homeopathic Society, and he practiced in Cheltenham.

Claude Buchanan Kerr was possibly the homeopathic practitioner of Alfred Lord Tennyson, who knew a homeopath from Cambray in Cheltenham called Dr. Ker (C B Kerr), who he referred to in a letter to Charles Dickens.

In 1839, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin completed a translation of Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, but a fire at his printers destroyed everything, and Quin’s failing health prevented him repeating this momentous task for a second time.

Nothing daunted, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin witnessed an influx of recruits to the cause of homeopathy. In 1839, Francis Black, John James Drysdale, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, C B Kerr, John Chapman, Stephen Yeldham, Joshua Lambert Vardy, Edward M Madden, Henry R Madden Edward Charles Chepmell and many others joined the fight. Charles W Luther was already established in Ireland and remained in constant correspondence with Frederick Hervey Foster Quin.

The Association for the Protection of Homeopathic Practitioners and Students was Founded in 1851, 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.

Volume II, The History of Homeopathy, contains contributions both foreign and domestic. Appropriately enough, the first section is a 90 page history of homeopathy in Germany 1794-1875, including statistics about certain hospitals and dispensaries, written by Carl Gustav Puhlmann and Clotar Mueller. This is followed by an historical and statistical report on homeopathy in the United Kingdom, specifically Great Britain and Ireland, each section written by a different member of the British Homeopathic Society: C. B. Kerr, Herbert Nankiveli, Richard Hughes, Alfred Crosby Pope and William Bayes.

Claude Buchanan Kerr published a book on Fevers (See his Obituary in The Lancet), and he also published some articles in British Journal of Homeopathy.

Of interest:

Mr H A Kerr, c.1900 - 1980?, Kings Park, Cathcart, Glasgow, founder member of the Glasgow Lay Homeopathic Association, the first such lay homeopathic society in Britain, to be called the Scottish Lay Homeopathic Association, 1932 Heal Thyself,

Robert Kerr was the Honorary Secretary of the Norwich Homeopathic Dispensary in 1849.