author
C. W. Wolf
d. 1866
A 19th-century German physician, remembered for writing about the medical use of bee venom in homeopathic practice. His surviving work gives a glimpse into an era when doctors often built books directly from years of bedside experience.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Little is firmly documented about C. W. Wolf beyond his medical career, but available sources identify him as a German physician who served as a district physician, first associated with Calau in Lower Lusatia and later with Berlin. He died in Berlin in 1866.
Wolf is best known for Apis Mellifica; or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent (1858). In that book, published in English translation and credited to him as an ex-district physician in Berlin, he set out the therapeutic use of bee venom within 19th-century homeopathy.
What makes him interesting to modern listeners is the practical voice behind the text. Rather than writing as a theorist alone, he presents himself as a working doctor drawing on decades of clinical experience, which gives his book the feel of a period medical notebook as much as a formal treatise.