Daniel Smith MRCS LSA (c. 1804 – c. 1891) was an English orthodox surgeon who converted to homeopathy to become surgeon to the London Homeopathic Hospital. Smith was also Surgeon in Ordinary and Surgeon Accoucheur to the Hahnemannian Institution and Dispensary at Welbeck Street, London, and Surgeon to the Chelsea Homeopathic Dispensary. He was a member of the Gloucestershire Medical and Surgical Association, and was a Member of the British Homeopathic Society.

Smith’s colleagues included Robert Baikie, Charles Brisley, Hugh Cameron, Matthew James Chapman, William Valancey Drury, Robert Douglas Hale, Edward Hamilton, George James Hilbers, John Hutton Hill, Thomas Robinson Leadam, William Morgan, Frederick Hervey Foster Quin, John Rutherfurd Russell, Severin Wielobycki, George Wyld, and Stephen Yeldham.

Daniel Smith was born in Sandford, Oxfordshire, the son of Leonard Smith (1756-1809) and Priscilla Poole (1771-1809), and was baptised in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire in October, 1804.

The details of Smith’s early life are not clear but he resolved on a career in medicine and in 1828 was made a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. Two years later, in 1830, he was admitted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons..

By the early 1830s, Smith had married Hannah Elizabeth and was living in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, where his children were all born: Annette Mary Smith (b. July 1831); Emma Jane Smith (b. 1835), Sydney Smith (b. 1838); Augustus Edward Smith (b. 1840); Frederick Daniel Smith (b. 1844).

According to Smith, he practiced in the town as a surgeon for fourteen years, suggesting that he had arrived there around 1832. It is possible that Smith was in Minchinhampton even longer, with local historians citing a letter allegedly written by him in 1846 asserting that he had been the town surgeon for sixteen years.

A difficult surgical case treated by Smith in 1835, involving the amputation at the hip of a fifteen-year-old boy’s severely injured leg, provides an insight into his professionalism and collegial approach to medical practice. Before undertaking the hazardous procedure, Smith sought the opinions of two more experienced surgeons, and subsequently submitted an account to the London Medical Gazette in order to place the operation—and the circumstances that had made it necessary—before the wider profession. Although the procedure itself was successfully completed, the boy unfortunately died shortly afterwards from the effects of his injuries and severe blood loss. Nevertheless, Smith maintained that the outcome might very well have been different had the boy’s condition been less desperate:

“Notwithstanding the unsuccessful termination of the foregoing, I think it by no means militates against the performance of the operation in general. Here was a boy of scrofulous diathesis, who had received a terrific injury, which had caused a great shock to his vital powers; added to which, three-quarters of an hour elapsed ere he could be extricated from the machinery, during which time the hæmorrhage must have been profuse, and this succeeded by one of the severest operations in surgery; yet the patient lived thirty hours. I do think the case fully justifies the belief that, under more favourable circumstances, recovery might be anticipated.”

In 1845, Smith joined other Gloucestershire surgeons to petition Parliament against the Royal College of Surgeons’ controversial new charter. They particularly objected to the creation of a privileged “Fellowship,” whose proposed membership disproportionately favoured London surgeons, arguing that experienced provincial practitioners were being unjustly excluded. Ironically, Smith’s support for the petition is noteworthy given his own subsequent career: still firmly established as a provincial surgeon at Minchinhampton in 1845, he would relocate to London about a decade later.

The following year, 1846, during a serious outbreak of typhoid fever at Minchinhampton, Smith became an advocate of sanitary reform. In the process, he became embroiled in yet another controversy. He attributed the epidemic—incorrectly, according to modern understanding of typhoid transmission—which had resulted in more than 150 cases within two months, to soil containing decomposing human remains that had been disturbed during the rebuilding of Holy Trinity Church and that had been distributed around the town. Smith corresponded with noted sanitary reformer Thomas Southwood Smith over the issue, the latter publishing their letters in The Times newspaper. He was mentioned by surgeon William Simpson in his 1849 Digest of Several Reports on Sanitary Reforms, and later cited in a lengthy 1858 article on the “Etiology of Continued Fever” by Dr. Charles Murchison, then assistant physician to Kings College Hospital and the London Fever Hospital, who consulted Smith.

Smith’s assertions brought him into an acrimonious public dispute with prominent members of the local establishment, notably David Ricardo of Gatcombe Park (son of the noted economist) and the rector, Charles Whately, whose wife, daughter and gardener all died from the outbreak. The “Graveyard Fever Controversy” divided the parish and the coverage continued in the local Gloucester Journal and national press into 1847.

Although Smith’s relations with some of the most influential local figures must have been strained, he continued as surgeon to the town dispensary. According to the 1851 census, Smith and his family remained in Minchinhampton, residing at Well Hill.

It remains unclear when or through whom Smith encountered homeopathy. No evidence has yet been found that he practiced homeopathically at the time of the 1846 epidemic. By May 1854, however, his conversion to homeopathy was sufficiently established for Thomas Robinson Leadam, seconded by Stephen Yeldham, to propose him for membership of the British Homeopathic Society at the tenth annual meeting. Smith’s adoption of homeopathy therefore appears to have occurred during the later years of his Gloucestershire practice or very shortly after his removal to London.

The following year, 1855, Smith’s details were included as an addenda to the list of Members of the British Homeopathic Society in George Atkin’s British and Foreign Homoeopathic Medical Directory and Record, where he was reported to be residing at 2 Harriet Street, Lowndes Square, London. This indicates that Smith’s details were added late in 1854 after the publication had already been typeset.

Although the timeline of Smith’s appointments are not clear, Atkins’ Directory also recorded that by early 1855 he was already working as surgeon to the London Homeopathic Hospital, Surgeon in Ordinary and Surgeon Accoucheur to the Hahnemannian Institution and Dispensary at Welbeck Street, and Surgeon to the Chelsea Homeopathic Dispensary. The latter had been instituted on the King’s Road on New Year’s Day 1852, under the direction of physician Neville Wood with Smith listed as the other medical officer, suggesting that this appointment may have been the catalyst for his relocation to the metropolis.

By 1859, Smith, aged 57, was living with Hannah and four of their children at 64 Sloane Street, Belgravia, where he continued to be recorded as a surgeon into the late 1870s.

Smith became an active member of the homeopathic medical community, attending conferences and Society meetings. At one such meeting in 1863, Smith revealed that he was a low potency prescriber during a discussion of a paper “On the Advantages of Alternating the Higher and Intermediate Attenuations of Medicines in Treating Chronic Diseases” by Charles Brisley. Smith’s fellow participants in the discussion were Thomas Robinson Leadam, Edward Hamilton, Charles Brisley, and Matthew James Chapman.

By 1881, Smith was widowed and no longer in practice, and had moved from 64 to 60 Sloane Street. However, he continued to participate in homeopathic medical gatherings. In July that year, he attended the Quinquennial International Homeopathic Convention, held at Aberdeen House in London.

Smith’s final years are unrecorded, but the 1891 census shows that he was still alive, in his mid-eighties, retired, and residing at 21 Blenheim Road, Kensington. His name is absent, however, from the Medical Register for 1892, suggesting that he died sometime later in 1891.

Of Interest:

Edmund Smith MD (1804 – 1864) [no evident relation] was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy and moved to Sheffield where he became the first medical homeopath to practice in the city.

John Harmar Smith MRCS (1811 – 1893) [no evident relation] was an homeopathic physician at the Blackheath Homeopathic Dispensary.

Frederick James Smith [no evident relation] was a lay supporter of homeopathy who founded the Penzance Homeopathic Dispensary in 1856 and later served as its honorary secretary, alongside John Hicks Nankivell.

Gerard Henry Smith MRCS LSA (1854 – 1831) [no evident relation] was an homeopathic orthopaedic surgeon and later pathologist who worked at the London Homeopathic Hospital. He attended the British Homeopathic Congress in London in July 1891.

Rev. F. Smith [no evident relation] was a clergyman who publicly advocated for homeopathy for the working classes in Manchester.