Henry Leffmann (September 9, 1847 – December 25, 1930) was an American chemist, physician and writer.

Biography

Leffmann born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

.White, James Terry. (1936)
''The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 25''
New York: J. T. White & Company. pp. 158-159 He was the fourth son of Henry Leffmann, a German Jew and Sarah Ann Paul of Doylestown a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

of Welsh ancestry.England, Joseph W. (1922)
''The First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, 1821-1921''
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. pp. 429-430 In 1864 he became a chemical laboratory assistant at Philadelphia High School. He was assistant to Benjamin H. Rand at Jefferson Medical College (1865-1870). He obtained his

M.D. A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of physician. This ge ...

in 1869 from

Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. The university is ...

. Leffmann was chemist to the coroner of Philadelphia (1875-1880) and district attorney (1885-1897). He was a chemist to dairy and food commissioners of Pennsylvania. He married Fannie Frank in 1876, they had no children. Leffmann was lecturer on Toxicology at Jefferson College (1870-1882), lecturer on botany at

Wagner Free Institute of Science The Wagner Free Institute of Science is a natural history museum at 1700 West Montgomery Avenue in north Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, it is a rare surviving example of a Victorian era scientific society, with a mus ...

(1874-1875) and Professor of Chemistry (1885-1903). He was microscopist of Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture (1877-1905), professor of chemistry at Philadelphia Polyclinic (1883-1898) and pathological chemist at Jefferson Medical College Hospital (1887-1905). He received an honorary

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the Wagner Free Institute of Science in 1874 and a DDS from

Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine (often referred to as Penn Dental Medicine or simply Penn Dental) is the dental school of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), an Ivy League university located in Philadelphia. It is on ...

in 1884. Leffmann supported

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

and has been cited as an "early male medical pro-feminist". He was professor of chemistry at the

Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania Founded in 1850, The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), formally known as The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, was the first American medical college dedicated to teaching women medicine and allowing them to earn the Doctor ...

(1890-1917) and emeritus until 1923.Peitzman, Steven Jay. (2000). ''A New and Untried Course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1998''. Rutgers University Press. pp. 86-88. Leffmann was not religious and joined the

Society for Ethical Culture A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

Criticism of Christianity

Leffmann authored a pamphlet ''The Mental Condition and Career of Jesus of Nazareth'' in 1904. He argued that

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

was a megalomaniac and that much of his phenomena could be explained by

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychological ...

and

suggestion Suggestion is the psychological process by which a person guides their own or another person's desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by presenting stimuli that may elicit them as reflexes instead of relying on conscious effort. Nineteenth-cent ...

. Leffmann was an advocate of the

swoon hypothesis The swoon hypothesis is any of a number of ideas that aim to explain the resurrection of Jesus, proposing that Jesus did not die on the cross, but merely fell unconscious ("swooned"), and was later revived in the tomb. According to the propone ...

, arguing that Jesus did not die on the

cross A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...

, but was "tenderly cared for, probably by the mother and brothers whom he had disowned and scorned, and quietly buried after his death, which may have occurred very soon afterwards."Leffmann, Henry. (1904). ''The Mental Condition and Career of Jesus of Nazareth Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge''. Philadelphia. pp. 18–21

Selected publications

''Memoranda on Poisons''
(1878)
''First Step in Chemical Principles''
(1879)
''A Compend of Chemistry, Inorganic and Organic''
(1891)
''Select Methods in Food Analysis''
(with William Beam, 1901)
''The Mental Condition and Career of Jesus of Nazareth Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge''
(1904)
''Analysis of Milk and Milk Products''
(1905)
''Outline Autobiography of Henry Leffmann''
(1905)
''About Dickens''
(1908)
''The States-Rights Fetish: A Plea for Real Nationalism''
(1913)
''Examination of Water for Sanitary and Technic Purposes''
(1915)

References

External links

Henry Leffmann
(Online Books) {{DEFAULTSORT:Leffmann, Henry 1847 births 1930 deaths 19th-century American chemists 19th-century American physicians 20th-century American chemists 20th-century American physicians American feminists American food chemists American humanists American critics of Christianity Jefferson Medical College alumni Jefferson Medical College faculty Physicians from Philadelphia Swoon hypothesis Chemists from Pennsylvania