Homeric Texts and Homeopathic Medicine Archival Collection
Overview
This digital collection brings together two distinct bodies of material that were originally unrelated but have been curated together for research convenience. The first component consists of the opening four books of
Homer’s Odyssey, rendered in modern English prose and covering the youthful hero Telemachus’s quest. The second component is a single early‑20th‑century German‑language homoeopathic manuscript (a scanned JPEG) together with its descriptive metadata and associated “Archivzetel” (archive‑leaflet) that outlines a distribution plan for clinical case reports within the German homoeopathic academy.
Background
The collection was assembled by the Arke Institute and indexed in the PINAX repository (ID 01KCJ7C2GQJ6TG7N44K2JHTCFV). The literary portion derives from a public‑domain transcription of the ancient Greek epic attributed to
Homer (c. 800–700 BCE). The medical portion originates from a 1900‑era homoeopathic manuscript authored by C. Hering and G. H. Bute, produced for the
Akademie of German homoeopaths. Both groups were organized into separate folders—
HomericTexts and HomeopathicArchival_Documents—as described in the accompanying re‑organization summary.
Contents
- HomericTexts – Four plain‑text files (book01.txt through book_04.txt) containing the full English prose of Odyssey Books I–IV: the gods’ council, Telemachus’s assembly in Ithaca, his voyages to Pylos and Sparta, and the attendant speeches, omens, and divine interventions.
- HomeopathicArchivalDocuments –
scan_telemachy1.jpg (445 KB JPEG) – scanned manuscript page with OCR text describing remedy‑selection criteria, three case excerpts (e.g., Silicea* Xo for “Gürtel”), and a detailed distribution plan for the archive.
* Accompanying metadata outlining the proposal for double‑numbered sheet printing, cost structures, and subscription logistics managed by A. and W. Blumer.
* A meeting notice for a Northampton Society gathering on 27 April 1900, citing locations such as Altenau, Dornburg, Leoben, and Schipbach.
Scope
Chronologically the collection spans two eras: the mythic narrative of the 8th‑century BCE Greek epic and the practical homoeopathic documentation of circa 1900 CE. Geographically it references the ancient Greek world (Ithaca, Pylos, Sparta, Olympus) and early‑20th‑century German locales (Altenau, Dornburg, Leoben, Schipbach). Subject matter includes classical literature (heroic quest, divine intervention), homoeopathic medicine (case studies, remedy distribution, archival practices), and the institutional history of the German homoeopathic academy. No later books of the Odyssey or subsequent homoeopathic publications are included.