Frederic Hervey Foster Quin

[1] Quin's place of birth has been concluded, based on recent research, to have been Ireland; although per some past theories he has been incorrectly regarded as the son of Lady Elizabeth Foster, née Hervey, mistress and later second wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire,[2] more recent research has concluded he may have been her godson.

At Naples, too, Quin met Dr. Neckar, a disciple of Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, and was favourably impressed by what he learned of the homeopathic system of medicine.

On the journey he was introduced at Rome to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians, and soon left Naples to become his family physician in England.

Until May 1829 he continued a member of the prince's household either at Marlborough House, London, or Claremont, Surrey, and extended his acquaintance in aristocratic circles.

At length, in July 1832, he settled in London at 19 King Street, St. James's, re- moving in 1833 to 13 Stratford Place, and introduced the homeopathic system into this country.

In 1839 Quin completed the first volume of his translation of Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura, but a fire at his printers' destroyed the whole edition of five hundred copies, and failing health prevented him from reprinting the work.

On 18 October 1859 he was appointed to the chair of therapeutics and materia medica in the medical school of the hospital, and gave a series of lectures.