Quin, Frederick Hervey Foster (1799 – 1879)

Frederick Hervey Foster Quin’s parentage is unknown, although some scholars believe his mother was Elizabeth Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire. He was a schoolboy in Putney, attending a school kept by the son of children’s author and educational reformer Sarah Trimmer. In 1817 he went up to Edinburgh University to study medicine under Andrew Duncan (1773 – 1832), noted for his extraction of cinchona from Peruvian Bark. Quin graduated with his MD in August 1820.

In December 1820 Quin traveled to Rome as personal physician to the Duchess of Devonshire. He remained with her in the city between March and July before moving to Naples in order to remain proximate when she no longer required his constant attendance. In Naples Quin set himself up in what quickly became a thriving practice and he made close connections with such figures as the archaeologist Sir William Gell, the Countess of Blessington, and the diplomat Sir William Drummond.

In 1823 Quin had an offer from Lord Byron to accompany him to Greece as his physician, but his health was too delicate to accept. The painter Joseph Severn was a ‘mutual friend‘ of Quin and the artist and lay homeopath Thomas Uwins. Severn sketched a portrait of Quin, Richard Westmacott and William Etty playing cards in Naples in 1823.

1824 began dreadfully for Quin. In January, he was brutally assaulted by a Neapolitan coachman and nearly lost his life. Then in March he returned to Rome to attend the Duchess in her final illness. He travelled to England later in 1824 where he met Robert Grosvenor, 1st Baron Ebury, Sir Ferdinand Richard Edward Dalberg-Acton, and Thomas Uwins.

Back in Naples in 1825, Quin became acquainted with homeopath Georg von Necher who appears to have been responsible for Quin’s conversion to homeopathy, and he travelled to Leipzig to visit him, also meeting another homeopath, Chevalier Lichtenfels. In Berlin, he was introduced to several other homeopathic physicians and as a result resolved to visit Samuel Hahnemann himself at Köthen.

On the way to Köthen, Quin became very ill and was treated successfully with homeopathy, and he reported to his friend Thomas Uwins that his cure did not involve ‘any blood letting, no purges, no sudorifics and no blisters’, and he recovered after three days having taken ‘only five small powders’. Quinn was a lifelong asthmatic, which was eased by homeopathic treatment.

In 1826, he met with homeopath John Ernst Stapf and Samuel Hahnemann, and in 1827 he was appointed as physician to Queen Victoria’s uncle, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (Later King Leopold I of Belgium). Some sources report that Quin was Leopold’s physician as early as 1824, when he came across homeopathy after one of the prince’s household became seriously ill, only to be cured by homeopathy.

In 1831, Quin traveled to Germany to treat a cholera epidemic, and despite catching it himself, he worked through the epidemic until it ceased, to be warmly praised by the local Mayor. Quin successfully cured himself of cholera on Samuel Hahnemann’s advice.

His reputation greatly enhanced, Quin published a paper on cholera, and his friends persuaded him to return to London, which he did in 1832, settling at 19 King Street, St James‘s. His practice flourished, which caused uproar in the Royal College of Surgeons. Quin calmly ignored them and continued his work, no doubt secure in the knowledge that he had the support of many notable figures in British society.

Frederick Foster Quin, Lithograph by E. Morton. Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

As a young man, Quin was a very popular socialite and wit on the fashionable London circuit, a great friend of Charles Dickens amongst many others, and no society party, or social gathering, it was said, was complete without him.

By nature of a very pleasing disposition, he was a man of great personal charm. He was also latterly one of the regular dining partners of Edward VII.

The fact that many of the German relatives of the British Royal family were also devoted patrons of homeopathy, including Queen Adelaide, wife of King William IV, also assisted its rapid social acceptance in Britain.

Rich patrons of homeopathy, for example the first Marquis of Anglesea, Henry William Paget, companion at Waterloo of Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington, not only formed its client base, but also funded and dominated the committees which ran the many homeopathic hospitals and dispensaries of the nineteenth century.

During this time, Quin became personal physician to other influential figures, including the Duke of Beaufort, and in 1833, he moved to 13 Stratford Place, where he worked industriously, writing, consulting and keeping up a constant correspondence with his friends and his homeopathic colleagues abroad, including Moritz Wilhelm Mueller.

Quin’s reputation continued to grow and he met, treated and taught a great many people, often being consulted by other doctors who were eager to learn about the new art of homeopathy. Some of these many influential converts to homeopathy included Charles Mansfield Clarke 1st Baronet, James Clark, Edward Bulwer Lytton, William Makepeace Thackeray, Edwin Henry Landseer, Richard Robert Madden, Thomas Moore, William Charles MacReady, Charles James Mathews, John Forster, William Charles Ellis, Samuel Lover, Albany William Fonblanque, and many others.

Quin now also had homeopathic colleagues to assist him, including Guiseppe Belluomini, Harris F. Dunsford, Paul Francois Curie and Hugh Cameron. In 1836, Sir William Charles Ellis, the Medical Superintendent of the Hanwell Middlesex County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum, invited Quin and his colleagues Harris F. Dunsford, and Paul Francois Curie to dinner in order to learn more about homeopathy. Ellis, a pioneer of humane, moral treatment, “Had recently heard of the system of Homeopathy “and conceiving that it may be useful amongst the patients of this Institution” sought further information. Ellis was clearly impressed and used homeopathy in the treatment of several of his patients at Hanwell. This open-minded attitude towards homeopathy was continued at Hanwell by Ellis’ successors, Dr.s John Conolly and John Gideon Milligan, and the Chairman of the Asylum in the 1840s was Charles Augustus Tulk 1786 – 1849, a close colleague of homeopathic doctor James John Garth Wilkinson.

Although Quin’s charisma, contacts, and capabilities as a physician ensured that homeopathy quickly made many converts, orthodox medical opposition was marked from the moment of his arrival in the capital. The Royal College of Physicians had the ancient power to control all medical practice within seven miles of the City of London, although it had not exercised this right for a century. It called upon Quin, an Edinburgh graduate, to take the college examination. He ignored the summons and eventually the College lost its nerve and desisted. But he was not forgotten.

In 1836 the famed opera singer Maria Malibran, a patient of Quin’s friend Guiseppe Belluomini, died causing a storm of criticism against homeopathy. This polarised people, but homeopathy emerged from these attacks all the stronger.

In response to urging from his European colleagues and as a result of the vitriolic attacks on homeopathy, Quin and his friends and colleagues Guiseppe Belluomini, Harris F Dunsford, John Epps, Paul Francois Curie,Thomas Uwins, William Kingdon, Hugh Cameron, William Headland, Walter Cooper Dendy, and Edward Hamilton began to plan the creation of what would become The British Homeopathic Society.

Quin also set in motion the foundation of a London Homeopathic Dispensary with the aim of relieving the suffering of the poor and offering an opportunity to witness homeopathy in action to “interested parties.”

Homeopaths began to offer their time for free in rotation, attending the poor in their homes and forcing a consultation with allopathic physicians – all supported by voluntary contributions from friends of homeopathy.

Predictably, people rushed to help. Lord Elgin recommended his friend Dr. Scott from Glasgow, “an ardent student of homeopathy” to see Quin. Amos Gerald Hull wrote from New York, sending George Butler to see Quin with some journals, and with a promise from Constantine Hering to send over all the published documents from America, and sending over articles in defense of homeopathy. Hull also sent over the preamble to the constitution of the New York Homeopathic Society, pointing out new provings of American plants for Quin’s delectation.

Despite the support and goodwill, a number of orthodox medical men continued their truculent opposition to homeopathy, often targeting Quin. In 1838 Quin was proposed for membership of the Athenaeum Club, an exclusive gentlemens’ club. Another member, the then President of the Royal College of Physicians, Dr. Paris, publicly called him a quack. This slur was only retracted on pain of a duel, but the College still mobilised its supporters to ensure that Quin was blackballed.

Here is a small anecdote, related to Frederick Hervey Foster Quin. When Dr. John Ayrton Paris (1785-1856), then President of the Royal College of Physicians, noted seeing Frederick Hervey Foster Quin’s name in the list of candidates to the Athenaeum Club in London, he remarked that they had come to a sorry state if ‘quacks and adventurers’ were to be proposed as members.

Lord Clarence Paget, an officer in the Guards, visited some days later Paris. Lord Paget requested him either to provide a written apology for his language concerning Frederick Hervey Foster Quin or else justify it with pistols.

John Ayrton Paris was forced, not willing to try Lord Clarence Paget’s skills in shooting, to sign a retraction of his views, and an apology.

Quin also had the last laugh over the Athenaeum Club as James Epps, homeopathic chemist and the founder of the great cocoa business associated with his name , provided foodstuffs for the Athenaeum Club, who did not distinguish themselves when they prevented Quin from becoming a member, but were quite happy to munch on ‘homeopathic confectionaries!’ Further, Quin’s name had become even more widely known as a result of the incident, leading the Marquis of Anglesea to write and congratulate Quin on ‘his defeat’ of his opponents.

In 1839, Quin completed a translation of Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, but a fire at his printers destroyed everything, and Quin’s poor health prevented him repeating this momentous task for a second time. Although he did not contribute any further written material to the homeopathic corpus, Quin’s hard work as a physician and his strenuous efforts to popularize and institutionalize homeopathy ensured his legacy as one of homeopathy’s most significant individuals.

As a direct result of his efforts there was an influx of recruits to the cause of homeopathy. From 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 movement. Charles W. Luther was already established in Ireland and remained in constant correspondence with Quin.

In 1840, Quin moved to Arlington Street, and in 1843, he established the St. James’s Homeopathic Dispensary, numbering amongst his patrons the Queen Dowager Adelaide and the Duke of Beaufort.

In 1844, Quin founded the British Homeopathic Society to replace the Hahnemannian Society which he had tried to bring to life in 1837. Quin was the first President of the British Homeopathic Society. Thus followed blast and counterblast between homeopaths and allopaths which ultimately led to a boom of homeopathy in Britain.

From 1845, Quin became the personal physician of the Duchess of Cambridge.

By 1850 Quin’s most ambitious objective had been realized in the founding of a London Homeopathic Hospital. Thanks largely to his hard work, this centre for clinical teaching had been established initially at Golden Square, before moving to its permanent home in Great Ormond Street:

Dr. Quin himself collected an enormous sum of money from his influential friends for its endowment, and from his having initiated the idea of a hospital, and having done so much to carry out his project, he must always be regarded as its founder.