Dr. H. C. Allen was born on February 10, 1836, in the village of Nilestown, near London. He was the son of Hugh and Martha Billings Allen, a descendant of the distinguished family of Vermonters and Colonial families of Massachusetts Bay. After selling their property, the family moved to Deerfield, in the Connecticut Valley. H.C.Allen received his primary education in the common and grammar schools in London.
In the same school, he later taught for some time. In the year 1861, he completed his medical education at the Western Homeopathic College in Cleveland, Ohio, and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. After completing the course, he entered the Union Army and served as a surgeon under General Grant.
He was offered a professorship in Anatomy in Cleveland and in the same place he first started practicing medicine. He resigned from there and accepted the same professorship in Anatomy at the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago. On December 24th, 1867, he married Selina Louise Goold, in Brantford, Ontario. He had two children from this marriage.
In the year 1880, he was appointed as the Professor of materia medica at the University of Michigan. After working here for some period he moved to Ann Arbor, where he resided till the end. In 1892, he established the Hering Medical College and Hospital, of which he was Dean and Professor of Materia Medica until his death. He died on the 22nd day of January 1909.
Contributions
1. Dr. Allen was an honorable senior at the American Institute of Homeopathy.
2. A member of the International Hahnemannian Association.
3. A member of the Illinois Homeopathic Medical Association.
4. A member of the Englewood Homeopathic Medical Society.
5. A member of the Regular Homeopathic Medical Society of Chicago.
6. Honorary Vice-President of the Cooper Club of London, England.
7. Honorary Member of Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio State Medical Societies.
8. Honorary Member of the Homeopathic Society of Calcutta, India.
9. He was the owner and editor of Medical Advance for many years. Besides writing many articles in this and other magazines, he wrote numerous books, among which are the following:
i. Keynotes of Leading Remedies.
ii. The Homeopathic Therapeutics of Intermittent Fever.
iii. The Homeopathic Therapeutics of Fevers.
iv. Therapeutics of Tuberculous Affections.
v. Boenninghausen’s Slip Repertory.
10. A treatise on the nosodes, was completed only a short time before his death and was the result of years of study, experience, and of proving and confirming the symptomatology of many of the nosodes. His observations are here published for the first time.