Dr. Roni V. Dudhwala (MD)

History of Dr. J. T. Kent

Dr. V. H. Dave Homoeopathic Medical College,Amul Dairy Road, Anand, Gujarat. 388001

• Date of Birth: 31st March 1849

• Birth Place: Woodhull, New York

• Date of Death: 5th June 1916

• Death place: Montana for vacation

• Reason for death: Bright Disease

• Father: Stephen Kent

• Mother: Caroline Tyler

Dr. James Tyler Kent

• Elementary education- Franklin Academy, Prattsburgh.

• Secondary education- and Woodhull Academy, Woodhull.

• Ph.B- At the age of 19, from Madison University at Hamilton, New York state, 1868

• A.M.- from Madison University at Hamilton, New York state, 1870

• He then went on to study medicine at the Faculty of Bellevue Medical College where he passed his final examination brilliantly and qualified as a Doctor of Medicine.

• He subsequently attended two courses of lectures at the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati in the state of Ohio.

• He had also got knowledge in naturopathy, homoeopaty and chiropractic.

Education

• 1st Wife : 1874 : Allen• 2nd Wife : 1878 : Lucia - Died 1895• 3rd Wife : 1896 : Clara Louise Toby

Marriage

• 1874- settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where he took up medical practice.

• 1876- took a post as a professor of anatomy at American College in St. Louis.

• same time being actively connected with several eclectic journals in the capacity of writer and also took an earnest part on the Councils of the Eclectic National College, St. Louis, 1877-1878.

• It was an event in his domestic life that changed his professional practice and his future, in 1878. He adored his wife and he was deeply troubled about the worsening state of debility, languor, anaemia and persistent insomnia had kept her bedridden for months. It was at this time that he underwent a period of considerable dissatisfaction with the therapeutic methods being practiced by himself and his colleagues. Neither his own eclectic practitioners nor those of the allopathic school could bring about an improvement in his wife’s condition. When it become visibly worse Mrs. Kent begged him, as a last resort, to call in a certain homoeopathic doctor.

Professional life

• Dr. Kent consulted Dr. Phelan for the treatment of his wife. Kent could not refrain from smiling on seeing the manner of questions Dr. Phelan asking to his wife. Under the treatment of him Mrs. Kent had recovered her health completely within few weeks. Kent was deeply impressed by what he had witnessed and his naturally frank and straightforward character compelled him to apologize to his colleague (Dr. Phelan). The cure of his wife moved him so deeply that he was determined to make a through investigation into this type of therapy.

• Under the guidance of Dr. Phelan he studied Homoeopathy. His study of Homoeopathy brought him such certainty and convictions that he know no peace until he was able himself to apply this doctrine with all the conscientiousness and strictness it demanded. Through exceedingly hard work he confirmed the absolute veracity of the ‘Law of Similars’ and established the need for individualization. He confirmed also the unbelievable efficacy of minute doses thanks to the process of dynamization discovered by the founder Samuel Hahnemann.

• 1881 - a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri.

• 1882 - He was appointed to the Chair of Surgery at the Missori Homoeopathic Medical College, St. Louis. 

• 1883 - He took the charge of Professor of Matreria Medica in Missori Homoeopathic Medical College, St. Louis, after retirement of Dr. Uhlemeyer. He remained in that post until 1888.

• 1890-1899 - moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors in materia medica at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia.

• 1903-1908 - He worked as a senior lecturer in Materia Medica at Hahnemann Medical College & Hospital, Chicago

• 1909 - He taught Materia Medica at Hering Medical College & Hospital

1. He advocated the use of 30, 200, 1M, 10M, 50M, CM, DM, and MM potencies made on Centesimal scales.

2. He introduced ‘Series of Degrees’ in the treatment of chronic diseases.

3. He discovered that “As there are octaves of the musical tones, so there are octaves in the single substance through which severely it is possible to correspond with various places of the interior organism of the animal cells”.

4. He discovered Law of Vital action and Reaction as pointed out by Hahnemann in a more definite manner.

Dr. Kent as a Homoeopath

5. He also found out that Homoeopathic aggravation is essential from the application of Similimum in chronic cases.

6. He evaluated the symptoms in a nice manner imposing greatest values to the mental symptoms with their further classifications.

7. He did not attach much importance to the constitution as an aid to the prescribing. He says, “Every individual is a constitution”.

8. He proved many new medicines which have been described in his book ”New medicines, clinical cases, Lesser writings, Aphorisms and percepts”.

9. He also gave 12 observational symptoms.

10. Kent is remembered for his arguments against the conventional germ theory of infectious disease.

i. 1879 - Sexual Neuroses. St. Louis, MO: Maynard and Tedford.

ii. 1887 -Address before the International Hahnemmanian Association at Its Seventh Annual Meeting.

iii. 1897- Kent’s Repertory of Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Lancaster, PA: Examiner Printing House

iv. 1900 - Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy, Memorial Edition. Chicago: Ehrhart and Karl.

v. 1905 - Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica. Philadelphia: Boericke and Tafel.

vi. 1926- New Remedies, Clinical Cases, Lesser Writings, Aphorisms and Precepts. Chicago: Ehrhart and Karl, 1926.

vii. What the Doctor Needs to Know in Order to Make a Successful Prescription.

Dr. Kent as an author

i. The Homoeopathic Courier (1881-82)

ii. Journal of Homoeopathics (1897 – 1903)

iii. The Homoeopathician (1912 – 1916)

Dr. Kent as an editor

• Kent J. T., lectures on homoeopathic Philosophy• Kent, J. T., Repertory of homoeopathic meteria medica, Indian

edition• Khanaj, Reperior, 4th edition• Tiwari S. K., textbook of homoeopathic repertory.

Refrences

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