(2 of 2)
which offers courses in homeopathy in addition to the standard medical curriculum.
Homeopaths differ from other physicians only in their adherence to Hahnemann's principle of minute doses at frequent intervals. Many of them have even discarded this practice, using, for example, the standard massive doses of sulfanilamide in cases of acute infection.
A landmark in Philadelphia is the old homeopathic drug firm of Boericke & Tafel. There, under a huge bronze bust of Hahnemann, elderly, mustached clerks dispense remedies from thousands of little brown containers across marble counters adorned with urns of dried Tampa grass.
Last fortnight, as it graduated a new crop of nurses, Hahnemann Hospital celebrated the 50th anniversary of its nursing school, organized by Miss Louise Kellner, one of the 38 nurses who accompanied Florence Nightingale to the Crimea. Master of ceremonies was spicy, 65-year-old Dr. Ralph Walter Plummer, a retired captain of the U. S. Navy, now medical director of the hospital. Said Dr. Plummer to the stiffly starched nurses: "Step up, Clara, step up, Flora; don't be bashful, girls. Now here comes Bessie. There's a bird! ... 50 years ago when this school was started I was swinging a rattle." Next day his desk was cluttered with rattles.
A cleanly built skyscraper, the hospital houses 646 beds, serves 500 clinic patients a day. Hospital and school are staffed by such well-known doctors as Anesthetist Henry Swartley Ruth, Cancer Specialist Stanley Philip Reimann, Dermatologist Ralph Bernstein, and the dean of Philadelphia homeopaths, Gastroenterologist Harry Martin Eberhard.