He would later recall this period as "not particularly nice" ("nicht besonders schön"), complaining about the untutored fellow students, bad teachers and inadequate lessons.

With fellow pupils who included Jacob Nachod - later notable as a Leipzig merchant and philanthropist - he received an academic grounding in Geography, History and Mathematics.

At Easter 1825 he switched to Dresden's prestigious School of the Cross, having previously, at his mother's instigation, taken private tuition in Latin and Greek.

[1] In order to save money he now embarked on a study course at the Royal Saxon Medical-Surgical Academy ("Königlich Chirurgisch-Medicinische Akademie") in Dresden, housed in the de:Kurländer PalaisKurländer Palais building.

[1] It was in part a measure of his professional success that in 1844 Bernhard Hirschel married Cäcilie Levi, who came from one of Dresden's leading commercial families.

In 1846 he published "An Evaluation of Saxony's Government and its People" ("Sachsens Regierung, Stände und Volk"), which provides valuable and unusual insights with its analysis of the various political groupings in the Saxon legislature ("Landtag").

It was only in 1849, three years later, that Hirschel acknowledged his authorship, writing in another book, "Saxony's recent past: A contribution to the assessment of the present" ("Sachsens jüngste Vergangenheit: Ein Beitrag zur Beurtheilung der Gegenwart").

Prescise details of his involvement are unclear, but there is reason to believe that he was not himself a participant in street fighting, but was arrested for applying his medical skills to treating wounded protesters.

[1] Bemoaning the way that when, during the revolutionary uprising, decisive moments had arrived, he had not been in a position to play a public role, he does indeed appear to have retreated into private life.

[1] 1856 saw the publication of what was probably his best known book, "The Homeopathic Doctor's Treasure chest and its Uses at the Sickbed" ("Der homöopathische Arzneischatz in seiner Anwendung am Krankenbette").

The effectiveness of the homeopathic approach was not universally accepted by the medical establishment, but despite this during the second half of the nineteenth century it was rapidly gaining supporters across the world.

Bernhard Herschel proved a case in point: on his fifty-ninth birthday neither "conventional treatments" nor Homeopathy were able to prevent his death from Peritonitis.

After his withdrawal from politics in the wake of the March uprisings he became a teacher at the Dresden synagogue, supported various zionist associations and for several years was an elder of the community.