Clemens Maria Franz von Bönninghausen

Title page of 1824 from the university library of Harvard

When his father died in 1812 von Bönninghausen moved to his family estate in Darup, just across the border in Kreis Coesfeld, Prussia. He graduated as architect and devoted himself to the study of medicine, agriculture and botany. He published numerous articles about his experiences and discoveries, which resulted in international fame. In 1816, at the reorganization of the provinces Rhineland and Westphalia, he was appointed as president of the Court of Justice and General Commissaries of the land register of North Rhine-Westphalia. The many travels with this position gave him an excellent opportunity to study the flora and he published a book about it, named: Prodromus florae Monasteriensis Westphalorum, Phanerogamia.

The very same year King Frederick William III of Prussia appointed him as first commissary at the Council of Kreis Coesfeld. Von Bönninghausen was founder and head of the medical society in North Rhine-Westphalia. He was appointed head of the Botanical Gardens in Münster from 1826 till 1845 and taught at what would later become the University of Münster.[2] He also led the constitutional commission of experts in the investigation of the nun Anne Catherine Emmerick. They concluded that her wounds were mechanically inflicted and not supernatural. However, her beatification in 2004 by Paus Johannes Paulus II was based on a supernatural origin.[3][4]

In 1827, Bönninghausen contracted tuberculosis, followed by an intractable lung disease. Certain that he was about to die, he began writing farewell letters to his friends. One of them, friend and fellow botanist Carl Ernst August Weihe, urged him to use the herb Pulsatilla, believed to be the cure of his ailment. Von Bönninghausen was cured, and thus became a convert to the new therapy. In less than two years he wrote seven extensive works.

He became a close associate and confidant of his teacher Samuel Hahnemann, founder of the homeopathy, who admired Bönninghausen's ability to systematize the expanding homeopathic knowledge of materia medica. Hahnemann was so enthusiastic that he called him his Lieblingsschüler (Favourite student). He said: "Am I to become sick myself, then I would trust no other physician in the world, except for him."

Title page of the English (1847) and German (1846) edition from the university library of Michigan.

Bönninghausen's Therapeutic Pocketbook of 1846 was the first homeopathic repertory to grade individual remedies by their strength of relationship with each symptom, and each other. This so-called von Bönninghausen (or von Boenninghausen)-method has remained in use until the present day. He proposed that disparate symptoms associated with a remedy could be grouped as a single overarching tendency, hence the importance of generalities and modalities in his system of case analysis. His method was sometimes misunderstood by later homeopaths such as C. Hering and J.T. Kent. Latter did this on purpose, just to promote his own repertory. However, recent translations and revisions point to a revival of interest in Bönninghausen's approach. An early advocate of high potencies, he conducted a successful prospective trial of 200C in domestic animals and livestock, reasoning that veterinary homeopathy was harder to dismiss as a placebo effect.

Because of his own miraculous healing and thanks to his public fame the people massively sought well-being at the doctor. Practising homeopathy successfully on a small scale without a medical degree, fascinated and ultimately led to von Bönninghausen receiving a medical licence by personal royal degree from Frederick William IV, King of Prussia in 1843. This made him a doctor and ensured that he could effectively treat patients.

Among his growing international clientele, he saw some notable patients. One of the first was the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. She was cured of tuberculosis. Also among them was the French Empress Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Napoleon III. In 1854 von Bönninghausen received an honorary degree from the Medical College in Cleveland (North America). And in 1861 the French Emperor Napoleon III decorated him as Knight in the Légion d'honneur.

The standard author abbreviation Boenn. is used to indicate von Bönninghausen as the author when citing a botanical name. A list of plants discovered by him can be found in the IPNI.

The two oldest of his seven sons became a homeopath as well. Karl von Bönninghausen, the eldest, went to Paris where he had access to the private library and manuscripts of Hahnemann and married Sophie, the adopted daughter of Melanie Hahnemann (Hahnemann's widow).

His grave on the old Hörster graveyard in Münster was destroyed in a bombardment during the Second World War. Nowadays the scholar is being remembered at this very place with a sandstone monument displaying a picture of the baron.[5] Also, several streets and plants are named after him, like the Boenninghausenia altiflora, Boeninghausia vincentina and a genus of the Rutaceae, Boenninghausenia.

In 1990 the Clemens von Bönninghausen Academy was founded,[6] and in 2009 the Von Bönninghausen Institute.[7] A memorial to von Bönninghausen was installed in 2005 at the University of Münster, on the celebration of the 250th birthday of Samuel Hahnemann's birth.