Dr James Tyler Kent-Life History and Contributions

Dr Mini VG  BHMS,MD(Hom)

JAMES TYLER KENT(1849-1916)

BIRTH
Born-1849,March 31st,Woodhull,NewYorkstate in the USA to Stephen Kent and his wife Caroline

EDUCATION

• Primary Schooling-Franklin School Prattsburg
• Secondary Education-Woodhull academy
• Graduation-Madison UniversityAt Hamilton,NewYork state-PhB.degree.
• Medicine –Bellevue Medical College-Passed exams brilliantly and qualified as a doctor of medicine.
• Attended courses of lecture-Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinatti in State of Ohio.

Kent’s first wife Ellen died shortly after marriage at the tender age of 19He married again and his 2^nd wife ,Lucy became seriously ill in 1878.

Professional Career-St.Louis ,Missouri as a practitioner of Eclectic school of Medicine.

Troubled with worsening state of health of his wife-she was bedridden with anaemia and sleeplessness and no cause could be elicited for her worsened health.

Neither the eclectic school  nor allopathic practioners could help her.

On wife’s insistence-a homoeopath was called for. 

TURNING POINT IN MEDICAL CAREER-
Dr.Richard Phelan-an old homoeopath cured her.

Kent was deeply impressed ,felt the need to study Homoeopathy.

Under Dr.Phelans guidance,learned basic principles of Homoeopathy.

Resigned his Chair of anatomy,

Gave up membership of Eclectic National Association-Turning Point in Medical Career.

1882-Chair of Surgery at Missouri Homoeopathic Medical College ,St.Louis

1883-88-Prof.of Materia Medica at Missori Homoeopathic Medical College ,St.Louis

1888-99-Work of Philadelphia Post Graduate School of Homoeopathics-Dean

During these years he lost his wife,further plunged into homoeopathy.

Studied and rallied to the philosophy of Swedenborg.

1896-Called forth to treat Clara Louis Tobey-to be his later wife,herself an allopath turned homoeopath.Was being treated with Lachesis repeatedly by homoeopaths in all her previous consultations and Kent declared it a Medicamental Miasm.He cured her of the condition by proper antidotes and advised never to use Lachesis again.

Married her and with her help completed the works of The Philosophy,The Materia Medica and The Repertory.

1900-appointed Dean of Dunham Homoeopathic Medical College,Chicago-Prof.of Philosophy,Repertory and Materia Medica.

1905-Dean,Hahnemannian Homoeopathic Medical College ,Chicago

1903-Successfully resolved the ongoing competition between Hering and Dunham Schools and incorporated both institutes into Hering Medical College of which Kent was first President.

It was one of the best colleges.H.C Allen andJ.H Allen were Professors there.Aluminis-Sir John Weir,Dr B.K Bose.

1897- Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica

1916- after completing 3^rd edition of the Repertory,on the insistence of his students took a vacation and went to Stevensville,Montana.He was suffering from CATARRHAL BRONCHITIS which developed into BRIGHT’S DISEASE and 2 weeks later ,on June 16 ,1916 he died. 

MEMBER OF

1. Illinois state homoeopathic medical society
2. American institue of homoeopathy
3. International hahnemannian association
4. Honorary corresponding membership in british homoeopathic medical society 

 BOOKS

1. Lectures on homoeopathic philosophy
2. Repertory of homoeopathic materia medica
3. Lectures on homoeopathic materia medica
4. Lesser writings-clinical cases,new remedies aphorisms and percepts
5. Use of the repertory,how tostudy the repertory,clinical cases,repertory and repertorisation
6. What the physician needs to know inorder to make a successfulprescription 

NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS
He  is  looked upon as one of the best teachers and exponents of the homoeopathic school of america
More than  40 yrs of medical practice and over 30 yrs of teaching experience .

1. He was the only homoeopath who contributed vastly to the system in the three fields-Philosophy,Materia Medica and Repertory.
2. His work of the Repertory is more systematic than any previous authors-systematically indexed.
3. He created portraits of remediesEg:Sulphur as “the ragged philosopher.”
4. Later M.L TYLER his student,further developed his ideas of constitutional pictures of remedies and wrote a book ‘Homoeopathic Drug Pictures’
5. Kent is remembered for his observations-‘KENTS 12 OBSERVATIONS’ in his Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy.
6. PIONEERED THE — USE OF HIGHLY POTENTISED REMEDIES(200and above
7. ADVOCATED POTENCIES MADE ON CENTESIMAL SCALE
8. LAID IMPORTANCE OF MIND SYMPTOMS IN CHRONIC CASES
9. THEORY OF OCTAVES-He discovered that just as there are octaves of musical tones,so there are octaves in simple substance,through which it is possible to correspond with the various planes of the interior organism of the animal cells.These planes correspond to similar remedy in 30^th,200^th,1M,10M,50M,CM,DM and MM potencies.
10. Single medicine prescription.
11. Wait andwatch principle,which he adapted from the 4^th edition of Organon(No repetition of dry dose till improvement from previous dose stopped completely.
12. Kent inspired lots of students,one of them being the recent Dr.George Vithoulkas.