Francis Black M.D. (19 January 1820 – 29 May 1883) was a British homeopathic physician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, Treasurer of the Hahnemann Publishing Society, as well as Treasurer of the International Homeopathic Convention, and of the British Homeopathic Society.

He was also Editor of The British Journal of Homeopathy, honorary member of The British Homeopathic Association, a member of The Hahnemann Medical Society, a committee member of the Association for the Protection of Homeopathic Students and Practitioners, and the President of the first British Homeopathic Congress, held at Cheltenham, in 1850.

Francis Black was Physician to the Edinburgh Homeopathic Dispensary and, later, Physician to The Bristol and Clifton Homoeopathic Dispensary.

Francis Black was born in Bombay (Mumbai) on 19 January, 1820, the son of a Captain in the Honourable East India Company. In 1825 he was sent to Scotland for his education, studying first at Edinburgh High School before qualifying with his M.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1840.

After graduating, Black left for Paris to study under Samuel Hahnemann. The following year he returned to Edinburgh, where he and John Rutherfurd Russell established the Edinburgh Homoeopathic Dispensary, the first such dispensary in the British isles.

In 1843, Black, Russell, and John James Drysdale founded the British Journal of Homeopathy. Although Black ceased editorial duties after the first volume, he continued to contribute articles to the journal up to the final year of his life.

Black continued to practice in Edinburgh, boldly facing off against the hostility of orthodox medical men who conspired to prevent his fellowship to the Edinburgh College of Physicians.

In 1846, in search of warmer weather for his wife who was in delicate health, Black relocated to Clifton, Bristol. There, at 12 Lansdown Place, he set up  what would become a lucrative private practice, and served as physician to the forerunner of the Bristol Homoeopathic Hospital, the Bristol and Clifton Homoeopathic Dispensary.

In November 1853, Black and his colleague Henry Wilkins treated a patient with a testicular hydrocele at the Clifton Homoeopathic Dispensary using Graphites, Silicea and Saccharum Lactis.

Francis Black remained an esteemed member of society in Clifton for the next three decades, involving himself in projects including the establishment of Clifton College, where he would remain a member of the school council for almost two decades.

In 1850, Black was President of the very first meeting of the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at the Queen’s Hotel in Cheltenham, and held the office again for the 1872 Congress in York. He was a member of the Congress Executive Committee in 1872 and 1873, alongside James Gibbs Blake, Charles Phillips Collins, William Simpson Craig, John James Drysdale, George Dunn, Evan Fraser, John Hicks Nankivell, and Edward Wynn Thomas.

 

 

Francis Black was a member of The Hahnemann Publishing Society and a committee member for the Association for the Protection of Homeopathic Practitioners and Students.

In 1878 Black moved  to London but ill health ended his career as a practitioner. Nevertheless, he continued to devote his remaining years to the homeopathic materia medica and authored a number of published works.

He also served as the Treasurer for the Second International Homeopathic Congress held in London on 12-18 July 1881, at Aberdeen House, Argyll Street, Regent Street.

Francis Black died from colon cancer in May, 1883, at the young age of 64. His obituary in The New York Medical Times was written by John Henry Clarke, and in the British Journal of Homoeopathy the editors, Clarke, Dudgeon, and Richard Hughes emphasized his importance to homeopathy:

Dr Black was one of the few British homoeopathists who had enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the illustrious founder of homeopathy. His loss is a great one to homeopathy, to which he rendered immense services throughout his while career, not only by working towards its scientific development, but by defending it in its early struggles against the assaults and persecutions of powerful and unscrupulous enemies….

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