Frederic Hervey Foster Quin (12 February 1799 – 24 November 1878) was the first homeopathic physician in England. Early life and education Quin's place of birth has been concluded, based on recent research, to have been Ireland; although per some past theories he has been incorrectly regarded as the son of Lady Elizabeth Foster, née Hervey, mistress and later second wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire, more recent research has concluded he may have been her godson. On the basis of Lady Elizabeth's alleged affair with Valentine Quin, 1st Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, this earlier research suggested he was Quin's father, but alternatively also suggested the Irish journalist, bookseller, and collector, Henry George Quin (1760-1805), of Trinity College, Dublin. Quin passed his early years at a school at Putney, kept by a son of Mrs. Sarah Trimmer, the author. In 1817 he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. on 1 August 1820. Career In December 1820 he went to Rome as travelling physician to his likely godmother Elizabeth, now Duchess of Devonshire. He afterwards attended her in that city during her fatal illness in March 1824. On his return to London he was appointed physician to Napoleon I at St. Helena, but the emperor died (on 5 May 1821) before he left England. In July 1821 he commenced practice at Naples, and his social gifts made him popular with all the English residents there, who included Sir William Gell, Sir William Drummond, and the Countess of Blessington. At Naples, too, Quin met Dr. Neckar, a disciple of Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, and was favourably impressed by what he learned of the homeopathic system of medicine. After visiting Leipzig in 1826, to study its working, Quin returned to Naples a convert. On the journey he was introduced at Rome to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians, and soon left Naples to become his family physician in England. Until May 1829 he continued a member of the prince's household either at Marlborough House, London, or Claremont, Surrey, and extended his acquaintance in aristocratic circles. From May 1829 to September 1831 he practised in Paris, chiefly, but not entirely, on the principles of Hahnemann. In September 1831, after consulting with Hahnemann as to the treatment of cholera, he proceeded to Tischnowitz in Moravia, where the disease was raging. He was himself