Carl Frank Fischer | |
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Born | Carl Frank Fischer |
Died | 23 June 1893 |
Education | Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg |
Occupations |
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Carl Frank Fischer (year of birth unknown – 23 June 1893) was a New Zealand doctor, homoeopath and viticulturist.[1]
Fischer was born in Austria, and received a medical degree from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.[2] He migrated to New Zealand in the early 1850s.[2]
Fischer established his successful practice in Auckland after saving Jane Graham, wife of prominent politician George Graham, who was buried after a store collapsed.[1][3][2]
Between 1855 and 1856 he published 12 issues of the Homeopathic Echo, the first medical journal in New Zealand.[4] In 1857 he founded the Homeopathic Association.[2]
In 1858 after the arrival of the Novara, Fischer became close friends with geologists Ferdinand Hochstetter and Julius Haast.[2]
In 1869 Fischer moved to Sydney with his family, and by 1877 the family had gone to live in Europe. After the death of his wife Prudence, Fischer returned to Sydney.[2] He was awarded the Great Gold Medal of Science and Art by the Emperor of Austria for services to natural history and medicine.[5] His daughter married Commander Burges Watson of the Royal Navy, after which she lived in China where her husband had been permanently posted.[2]
Fischer died in 1893 in Chicago where he went to attend a medical congress and exposition and present a paper on the 'Progress of Homeopathy in New South Wales.[6][3][7]
Fischer married Prudence Florentine De Lattre, and together they had a daughter, Maria Theresa, who was born in Auckland.[2] Fischer lived in Takapuna, on the shores of Lake Pupuke, and was a prominent Auckland socialite.[2] Maria Theresa (also known as Marie Thérèse Fisher) married Commander Burges Watson in 1882.[8] The couples' eldest son, Fischer Watson, born in 1884, later became a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief of the New Zealand Division.