Carl Gottlob Caspari 1798 - 1828

Carl Gottlob Caspari 1798 - 1828 was a German lay homeopath and a student of Samuel Hahnemann in Liepsig.

Caspari was a member of Samuel Hahnemann’s Provers Union, and he was the compiler of the first homeopathic pharmacopoeia in 1825, and he wrote the Homeopathic Domestic Physician_ _which included a chapter on mesmerism. Herbert Mayo was enthusiastic about mesmerism, and he invented a Odometer to prove its effects, and Carl Gottlob Caspari was his assistant in these experiments.

In 1826, Caspari was using magnetised water ‘mesmerismus’ as a homeopathic remedy.

Carl Gottlob Caspari was the son of a village minister at Zschorlau, near Delitzsch. He studied and graduated at Leipzic.

He was the grandson of the Prof. D. Schott. In 1822 he delivered a course of lectures on practical surgery, to the students at Leipsic, being at the same time attracted to the teachings of Samuel Hahnemann.

Won by these unchangeable principles, he relinquished a brilliant future in a celebrated school for a place, perhaps obscure, with those who were subject to ridicule. After serious studies he published a work entitled My Observations Upon Homeopathy. He sought to reconcile the two doctrines. Having friends in both camps he attempted an impossible amalgamation between homeopathy and allopathy.

Surgery had been his favorite study, and his first researches into homeopathy were to determine the reciprocal influence of this branch on the two parties in the art of healing. He published many memoirs upon the subject. He believed that surgery and medicine need no longer be divided, but that with the aid of homeopathy surgical diseases could be more successfully treated.

Rather than disturb his researches he refused the Chair of Homeopathy at the University of Cracow, offered at the suggestion of the Consul General at Leipsic by the Russian Secretary of State, M. de Freigang.

Caspari especially excelled in didactic writings. He was actively engaged in his literary work at Leipsic when, sometime iii the beginning of the year 1828, he was attacked with the Smallpox, during an epidemic, and, being delirious, during the absence of his nurse he got hold of a loaded gun with which he shot himself through the head. This painful accident happened on February 15, 1828.

Caspari during the latter part of his life relinquished his notions regarding the union of the allopathic and homeopathic schools and became a zealous homeopath.

It is said that Samuel Hahnemann didn’t like him. and this amalgamation plan (between homeopaths and allopaths) is cited to account for this dislike. He was at the time of his death abort thirty years of age.

Pierre Augustus Rapou says of Caspari, that he had made electricity in connection with homeopathic therapeutics a special study. He had designed to write a monograph upon the subject, but the multiplicity of his other literary labors prevented it…

“From all that has been said it is evident enough that Caspari was a man of intellect and great attainments, and would have rendered homeopathy many an essential service.”

Franz Hartmann explains: “At this time (1826) two men were living whose premature death was a sad loss to homeopathy, for both were gifted men, and their works testify that their powers of mind were such as the Creator entrusts to but few.

“I refer to Dr Caspari and Carl Georg Christian Hartlaub concerning whom I can give no information except as regards their scientific character, for of their lives I knew but little.

“Dr. Caspari was the son of a very estimable country pastor, residing at Zschorlau near Delitsch, whose strictly religious character seems to have been inherited by his son, in whom it might have produced all overexcitement (though in this I may be mistaken), which rendered hint not quite accessible by everyone; I must, at least, infer from his general deportment that he was possessed of all insufferable haughtiness, which seemed to be based upon a fancy that he was exalted above all others.

“I cheerfully acknowledge, however, that I might have seen more than really existed, and perhaps this false observation is to be attributed to my snail house nature, the cause of which might have been found in my limited pecuniary means; but thus far my judgement was perfectly correct, that Caspari labored under an intellectual over-excitement, which manifested itself in eccentricities during his last sickness, and was, in fact, the occasion of his death.

“Caspari accomplished much at a time when homeopathy needed perfecting in every direction; it matters not whether he was incited to undertake his many labors spontaneously, or upon the suggestion of others, it is enough that he always comprehended his subject justly and enriched the science by its development.

“Thus he felt deeply, with all homeopaths then living, that the rapid spread of the new system among the people must depend upon the degree in which it enlisted the sympathy of the public.

“Fully possessed of this conviction he undertook the preparation of his work upon Homeopathic Domestic Physician, in which he accomplished his purpose in a manner which leaves nothing more to be desired.

“Thus Caspari, by the preparation of his Dispensatory, occasioned the publication of the present Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia. And who knows whether by his proving of Carbo vegetabilis he might not have excited Samuel Hahnemann to undertake the proving of both the charcoals. I am not quite positive as regards this last fact, but remember that Samuel Hahnemann was at one time quite angry at Caspari and cannot tell whether it was because he was always displeased with those who anticipated him.

Caspari wrote Dr. Caspari’s homöopathisches Dispensatorium für Aerzte und Apotheker, Homeopathic Domestic Physician.