03/04/2023
Remembering some of our greatest homeopaths... P.P. Wells MD
Dr. P.P. Wells was born in Hopkinton, NH, in 1808. He was the son of a doctor who discouraged the study of medicine. As a result, Wells took up printing at age 16, but later decided to study medicine with the old school physician, Dr. McGregory. He then entered Dartmouth Medical College, graduating in 1833.
Due to his failing health, Wells gave up medicine for several years, devoting himself to the drug business. He resumed practice in Providence, RI, where Dr. A.H. Okie introduced him to homeopathy. Shortly afterward, William Wesselhoeft gave Wells a letter of introduction to Constantine Hering.
When meeting with Wells, Hering turned away his patients for the day, locked the door, and the two talked until 4 a.m., leaving Wells with the knowledge he sought from the great master. After the meeting with Hering in 1843, Wells moved to Brooklyn, where he practiced strict Hahnemannian homeopathy until his death.
A voluminous legacy of his papers can be found in the Medical Advance, Homeopathic Physician, American Homeopathic Review, and the International Hahnemannian Association Proceedings.
Here is a sample from one of his lectures:
"Characteristic symptoms are those which individualize both the disease and the drug. That which distinguishes the individual case of disease to be treated from other members of its class is to find its resemblance among those effects of the drug that distinguish it from other drugs. This is what we mean when we say that with these the law of cure has chiefly to do. When we say 'like cures like' this is the 'like' we mean."
