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| Fr Augustus Muller, SJ |
The name of Father Muller has almost become synonymous with hospital and homeopathy not only in Mangalore but even in India. But perhaps not one in a thousand has ever given a thought to why the words have come to be linked up. It is quite simple. Father Muller's Hospital widely known for its homeopathy medicines owes its beginning and early growth to Father Augustus Muller, a German Jesuit. It was only after his death that in affectionate memory the Institution was named after him. Mysterious and hidden are God's ways and we see them at work in a special way in the life of Fr Muller. A hospital, and that in India, was far from the mind of Father Muller when as a young man he set sail to New York, in America- but let us not anticipate. St Ignatius was wont to say: "If only we knew what God would do with us if we let Him use us and correspond with his grace."
Father Augustus Muller, S.J. was born in Westphalia in Germany, on the 13th of March 1841. In 1861 he went to New York and joined the Jesuit Order there. After the usual two years of noviceship, he spent six years at St. John's College, Fordham, and one at St Mary's Montreal, and was then sent to Woodstock College, Maryland, to go through a course of Philosophy and Theology. At the end of five years, his health, which had always been poor, broke down completely. Everything that medical skill could do was tried to restore the poor Father, but all in vain. As a final resort, the doctors ordered a change to Europe, and France was the place destined for him. After having tried allopathic medicines for six months, he was asked by a friend to try homeopathy with which the Father had become acquainted just a few months before leaving America. Dr Espanet of Paris was forthwith written to and before six months had elapsed, the various ailments Fr Muller was subject to vanished as if by magic. This opened his eyes to the value of homeopathy, and conceiving at that time the idea of consecrating his life to foreign missions, he thought that the knowledge of this branch of science might be useful. With his Superiors' leave, and under the guidance of Dr Espanet, he set apart every day a certain portion of his time for the study of homeopathy and treated cases amongst his own brethren under the direction of the same doctor. These studies were continued under Dr Joseph Bechet at Avignon. It was there that Fr Muller published his first work on homeopathy for the use of missionaries, revised and corrected by Dr Bechet himself. Translated into English, this book has gone through several editions, and has been highly appreciated by the followers of homeopathy in India.
On his arrival in India, Fr Muller was posted at Calicut as Vicar. He took charge of the Cathedral Church from the Carmelites. The take-over was made in a very simple and quick manner. This is how Fr Muller describes it: "Arriving here at the parochial house I found that the Carmelites had packed up everything and in 15 minutes after our arrival, we were the sole masters of the house. They took our steamer to Cochin. And how did I find the things? As far as the house is concerned nothing but four walls." Nothing daunted Fr Muller and Fr Sani who had come with him put their hands to the plough and things began to look up slowly. The horse was his vehicle and he began to visit his parishioners most of whom were Anglo-Indians. Language, therefore, was not much of a problem though there is evidence of a complaint. A quaint complaint, indeed, to the Pro-Vicar Mgr Pagani in which it is noted: "that the said Father (Fr Muller) knows not a word of English. What he knows is American and his pronunciation is horrible." A later writer notes, "It is amusing that far back in 1879 Anglo-Indians' most of whom were speaking Portuguese too were making such a trenchant distinction between English and American."
But in a short time, Fr Muller's health failed him again and he was sent to Karkal, a place in South Kanara. Through ill-health God was leading him to his major work for those in ill-health. Here in Karkal he vigorously applied himself to the study of Konkani under the tutorship of Rev. Fr Sebastian Noronha, S.J. then a boy in his teens. (Fr Noronha in his 49th year joined the Society of Jesus and laboured for 30 years as a Jesuit). The knowledge of Konkani enabled him later on to hear confessions in the College and preach at the Bishop's house at Kodialbail. The author of the "In Memoriam" notes that he was the first among European Fathers to preach in Konkani.
In 1881 he was placed on the staff of St. Aloysius College. As a teacher he endeavored to make his pupils industrious, by insisting on the mastering of daily lessons and strongly advocating the memorizing system.
Fr Muller did well as a teacher, but his method, I am afraid, would not quite come up to the requirements of modern pedagogy. "John breaks the Charter-Sala Saldanha" he would say, opening his Smith's History of England. And Sala Saldanha (one of the students) had to recite the whole paragraph on "John breaks the Charter."
Far more useful than teaching, were the services rendered by Father Muller to the College boys as Confessor and Spiritual Director. It was well known that out of the boys that joined the seminary, year after year, the largest number were penitents of Father Muller. Later, when he was Director of the Kankanady Institutions, he helped some of them with money, took them out with him to his country house during holidays, and thus continued his paternal interest in their welfare.
And here at the College, itself in its beginnings, in the house at Kodialbail, opposite Bishop's House, the small seed of the present Fr Muller's Charitable Institutions was sown. Fr Muller's Christian Zeal for the suffering had a very small beginning.
His stock of medicines was a small box of drugs from Messrs Catellan, of Paris. At Kodialbail he treated the boys and the poor who applied to him for relief. An objection was raised to his treating the well-to-do, but Father Willy, the then Rector, met this objection by the plain statement, "The rich are as helpless as the poor when they are sick." "To us little boys," says Dr Fernandes, the pretty tiny bottles containing sweet pills had a special attraction; it was a novelty for medicine, usually so unpleasant, to be offered in a form so pleasant. No wonder that we often persuaded ourselves that we were ill and fit to be treated with Father Muller's pills. I recollect that I was one of the boys who was requested to help on holidays to wash his bottles and to shake the dilutions, each a hundred times."
His first stock of medicines was periodically renewed and increased by the help of charitable gentlemen, who perhaps had themselves benefited by his treatment. The work made steady progress. In the new College building on Edya Hill he was allotted a small place in the arched passage under the main stairs, where he kept his medicines and attended to the boys before and after school. Next, a small dispensary building was erected opposite to the chapel, where he did considerable business. Lastly in 1891, he moved over to Kankanady, transferring bodily in American fashion this structure which was made to form the nucleus of the present Dispensary.
At this time homeopathy was almost unknown in most parts of India, especially in Southern India. The fame of Fr Muller's skill induced patients from various places to write to him for advice and medicines. To satisfy this growing need, he applied for permission from his superiors to sell medicines to such people. The permission was granted to him on the condition that the profits derived therefrom, were to be devoted to the relief of the poor. In 1897 Father Muller received from the Rev. Father General of the Society of Jesus the secret formulae of the Soleri-Bellotti Specifics. He improved them, and their wonderful success contributed in great measure in promoting the fame of Father Muller's Dispensary. Owing to his reputation for integrity and philanthropic dispositions, to the prestige of the society of Jesus of which he was a worthy member, and to the superiority and excellence of the medicines he supplied, the Homeopathic Poor Dispensary received such a warm patronage from the public, that, it is the first of its kind in India.
Soon after opening the Homoeopathic Poor Dispensary, Fr Muller started the St Joseph's Leper Asylum, in which nearly a hundred lepers could be housed, fed, and treated. Between 1895 and 1901 he constructed two large hospitals, one for men and the other for women. In 1902, the bubonic plague appeared in Mangalore. Fr Muller came to the rescue and with the co-operation of the Catholics of Mangalore and with the aid of a grant from the Government, he erected a hospital for the plague-stricken. The heroic labours of the noble Father and his devoted staff in assisting those afflicted with this dreadful malady, justly merited the gratitude of Mangalore. In the erection of the several hospitals mentioned above, Father Muller received substantial aid from his friends in Mangalore and abroad.
His life was conspicuous for his active and industrious habits. To the end of his days, he directed personally the working of the Dispensary, visited daily the Hospitals and the Leper Asylum, and superintended the construction of the various buildings of the institutions. Besides this, a great deal of his time was taken up by his large medical correspondence, for he personally attended to the many applications for advice and prescriptions he daily received from many places. His scholastic attainments were great, and proved of much service to him in his work. He knew several European languages and could freely correspond in English, French and German. The knowledge of languages also enabled him to read the best works written by English, American and continental writers. He devoted his spare time to study and to edit useful books and pamphlets on Homoeopathy in English, French and Kanarese, several Guides on Specifics, and a large treatise on Tissue Remedies.
In 1901 Fr Sewell, S.J., visited Mangalore. "I had not been long in Mangalore," he wrote, "before Fr Muller carried me off to see his very interesting establishment at Kankanady. In the Dispensary, there were a number of clerks engaged in making up orders and preparing medicines. A very large business is done, for applications pour in, not merely from every part of India, but of the world- from England, the continents of Europe and America etc. From the Dispensary, I went to the Homoeopathic Hospital, with its two wards, one for men and the other for women, separated by a very prettily decorated chapel with sliding panels in each wall, which enabled the sick to assist at Mass from their beds. At some distance, situated on the brow of a ridge and at its extremity, so that there is fresh air and a fine view on three sides, stands another hospital, on the same plan as the other, but for lepers.... Below the hospital ridge is a fairly large garden belonging to the hospital. In another part of the ground is the house of the Brothers who nurse the sick; and separated from this, one for nursing Sisters is to be built. At present, there are only one or two, one the widow of a medical man, a trained nurse and Sister to the three of the Brothers. The Brothers are a semi-religious order or congregation living under rules and vows. They are dressed in ordinary clothes' having no particular garb, and eight in number.... Two of them are studying medicine in the Grant Medical College, Bombay, and are expected, at the end of the year, to help and in time replace Fr Muller in the care of the sick. All the nursing of the men-patients is done by these devoted young men, and of the women by the Sisters. When there was an outbreak of cholera they cheerfully undertook to receive and nurse the cases sent to the hospital, and by their care they saved several lives. I dined with Fr. Muller and his Brothers and was greatly edified by the simplicity and modesty of their manners and conversation."
A few years before, in 1894, Lord Wenlock, the Governor of Madras, and Lady Wenlock visited the Father's institutions. On their return to Madras, Lady Wenlock wrote thus: "Lord Wenlock has seen many leper hospitals, and he tells me that in none has he seen the conditions of lepers so much alleviated. Whether this is due to the medicines or the bathing, diet and other treatment, the fact remains that their condition is much improved and infinite praise is due to Father Muller's unselfish devotion."
In 1905, the Holy Father, Pius X, received at a private audience, Father Muller's Assistant, Dr Lawrence Fernandes, who was returning from England where he had been sent by Father Muller to visit the principal hospitals. During the audience, the Holy Father presented to Dr Fernandes an autograph letter in Italian, of which the following is the translation: "To our beloved son, Father Muller, S. J., and to Dr Lawrence Fernandes, who have both well merited of the foundation of the hospital for poor lepers in Mangalore, and to all equally beloved benefactors, who helped in this favourite work of charity, and to all the sick, praying for resignation from Heaven in their sufferings, we impart with all our heart the Apostolic Benediction."
In 1907 the charitable work of Father Muller received the recognition of the Government. Pinning on the Father's breast the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal, His Excellency Sir Arthur Lawley, the then Governor of Madras, said:
"I take that the purpose in view when the bestowal of the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal is determined on, is to make known as widely as possible the recognition of services of exceptional merit rendered to India and her peoples. I feel that the phrase which I have used- of exceptional merit- is a most inadequate description of the work which you have done in this district. The Church to which you belong has, decade after decade, been a practical and living exposition of the teaching of Christ's self-sacrifice, self-obliteration, self-devotion to the welfare of others, and no exponent of those doctrines has been more faithful, more consistent, more conspicuous than Father Muller. To restrain and to push back the encroachments of ignorance, poverty and sin, to do battle with the forces of disease, plague, leprosy and other ills which flesh is heir to this has been the noble task of his life. His way of life may seem to have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, but age cannot wither his infinite enthusiasm, his patient devotion to duty, his overflowing love for his fellowmen. I hope that to him and to the gallant band enrolled under his banner, the present moment may help in some degree to bring home the fact that his labour is not in vain, that we do realise how splendid has been the effort of his life, how rich the fruit of his works, and earnestly we hope and pray that God may prosper the labour of his hands- Sir, in pinning this medal on your breast, I offer you my sincere congratulations express the hope that for many a year to come you may wear this decoration, and that it may cheer you and others who with you are climbing the steep and rugged path of duty."
After labouring for over thirty years in relieving the sick and the poor, the lepers and the plague-stricken, Fr Muller received, the summons from his Master. Early in June, 1910, he was attacked by asthma, which in a short time brought on cardiac failure. With the hope of recouping his health he took a long sea-trip to Colombo and Calcutta, and spent some days in Darjeeling and Madhupur. Finding that his end was drawing near, with the earnest desire to reach alive the scene of his labours, he left Madhupur by train and returned to Mangalore on the 27th October in a dying condition. He survived but a few days. He was tenderly nursed by his devoted staff, who felt it a great privilege indeed to have the opportunity of serving in his last illness one whom they revered and loved as their father and to whom they owed so much. He bore his painful illness with the greatest resignation and patience, and unto the last he was an example of courage and trust in God. He expired peacefully in the Lord at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the 1st of November. It was All Saint's Day. He was in his seventieth year.
He was buried in the Chapel of the Leper Asylum, at the foot of the altar, before which the dear old Father had loved to make his thanksgiving after Mass, and to weep and intercede for the many suffering souls whom day after day Providence sent him. There, by his express desire, he rests among lepers, the outcasts of the earth, whom like his Divine Master, he loved with a tender love- a standing example of true love for suffering humanity.
Fr Muller is an example for us his Jesuit brothers to make the best of our talents and gifts in the service of Christ our Master. Every talent and gift in any degree, high or limited with a spirit of work and God's grace can work wonders. In spite of the so-called idiosyncrasies, faults and defects and in some cases because of them God has worked wonders through them as his instruments. We note this again and again in the lives of the Jesuits that have preceded us: they co-operated and usually through obedience, and things worked out well. In Fr Muller in particular, we may see besides the Jesuit as a man of duty and work, the Jesuit student-scholar ever pursuing his medical knowledge and study of languages; the Jesuit confessor, sowing gently the seed of strong piety and vocation in young hearts; and, above all, the Jesuit, companion of Jesus in his love for the sick and the poor. Faults and defects he had but charity covered them all, in particular his charity towards the rejected- the lepers.
Fr Muller sought God not only in the ontological categories of metaphysics, Theology and in meditations, but in the service of man-made in his image and likeness. It was in the concrete Faith, Charity and Justice in the Ignatian spirit of the Spiritual Exercises.
One trait appears again and again in the lives of these our pioneers and in those that followed them- their finding God's will in obedience to the will of superiors; in obedience to the happenings in life. Fr Muller's early ill health which was not a promising sign of a long life or exceptional work, turns out to be the key that opened out avenues for his life's work. Who could have ever dreamt of a charitable institution, named after Fr Muller, in Mangalore in the ill health of Fr Muller as a young Scholastic in America when even the very Jesuit Mission of Mangalore did not exist? His sickness led him to France, in France to homeopathy, to a love the sick, to a zeal for the Mission life, to Mangalore. Mysterious indeed are the ways of God. St Ignatius was wont to remark, "If only we were aware of the graces that God offers to us!" A single grace at times may change the whole course of one's life. Fr Muller had set his eyes on America as a possible field for his apostolate and joined the Society there but God had other plans for him and he brought them about through his sickness and obedience.
Dogged perseverance in work stands out in the life of Fr Muller. Anyone who has experienced the problems and difficulties that beset works in their initial stages will fully realise what it must have cost for Fr Muller to start the Dispensary, the Leper Assylum and then the hospital. Opposition and criticism was not wanting from the beginning, both from his companions in religion and from others outside it. But with his great trust in God he went ahead cooperating, we may say, with God's plan, with his spirit of hard work. He worked hard personally and saw also that others with him did the same. Often he must have seemed to them a stern and hard task master. But they knew that it was his love of God and of the poor, of the sick and of the suffering at fault, if ever it was a fault. Besides, his example set the pace for others, Big in body he was equally big in heart and mind. Whatever he undertook, he did it in his big strides and did it thoroughly. When he began the study of Konkani he applied himself to it so vigorously that soon he was able to hear confessions and preach in Konkani. In fact, he was the first Jesuit of the Province to preach in Konkani and did so on every Sunday at the Bishop's House. We may form an idea of the man and his search after efficiency and perfection in work from his attitude towards the Sisters of Charity. Through the influence of Mgr Cavadini he obtained their services. They arrived in Mangalore full of enthusiasm on 24th January, 1898. On their very landing Fr Muller inquired of them if they knew the language. And on his learning that they did not know it he asked them to return to Italy by the same steamer which had brought them. And he meant it. The poor sisters stayed on but they had not the good will and cooperation of Fr Muller. Humbly, obediently they served for some time under the head nurse doing the so-called menial work. After some time they were shifted to Jeppu to take up work of the orphanage. They could return to the hospital only after Fr Muller's death under his successor Fr Gionini S.J. But God's good Providence also works though and makes use of our faults and weaknesses. Fr. Muller's obstinacy in seeking efficiency resulted in the starting and fostering of the Jeppu orphanage which has done marvelous good to souls through the century under the smiling care of the Sisters of Charity.
Here is what Fr Em. Coelho, S.J. says of him in his brief bastian style in "In Memoriam." German and American, combined in himself the best of both. Trust in God and dogged perseverance- the secret of his success. Excellent as confessor. Many of his penitents became priests. His 'opus magnum' is the Kankanady Hospital which he started with a cigar-box of Homoeopathic bits of bread. His leper Asylum was the section he loved best.
Father Augustus Muller, S.J. in Years
1841, 13 mar. Born in Westphalia (Germany), Goes to New York
1861 24 Sep . Joins The Society of Jesus Neoeboracensis
1862 Novitiate
1863 First Vows
1864 Teacher, St. John's Coll., Fordham Till 1867
1868 Teacher, St. Mary's Coll., Montreal
1869 Philosophy, Woodstock Coll., Maryland
1870 do an.2 do
1871 do 3 do
1872 Theology 1 do
1873 do 2 do
1874 do 3 do
1875 do 4 do
Ordained Priest
1876 For Reasons of health in Paris, France
1877 Stud. Medic. In Avignon, France
1878 do do
1878, 27 Nov. Sails from Naples with 5 others.
1878, 31 Dec Arrival in Mangalore
1879 Asst. p. p. Calicut
1880 Teaches in S. Aloys. Coll., Mangalore. Begins Hom. Poor Disp.
1881 15 Aug Final Vows
1890 Opens the St. Joseph's Leper Asylum Opens
1895 Male Hospital
1901 Opens Female Hosptial
1907 4 Nov. Kaiser | Hind Medal
1908 to 1910 Leper Asy. Male & Fem. Hosp. Home. Poor Dis.
1910, 2 Sep. Goes to Ceylon & Calcutta by sea for health
1910, 27 Oct. Returns to Mangalore in a moribund condition
1910, 1 Nov. Dies in the Lord in Kankanady Hospital. Age 69. In the Society 49 years.
1936, 18 Oct. Unveiling of his portrait in the academy hall of St Aloysius College, Mangalore.
This above material is taken from the book "Restless for Christ - Lives of Select Jesuits who toiled in the Karnataka Province" Series - I
Video on Fr Muller's Work in Mangalore: https://youtu.be/REs2DKYXR9w
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