Benoît Jules Mure

Who was Benoît Jules Mure?

Benoît Jules Mure was a French homeopath, naturalist, and anarcho-communist.

After his studies in medicine at the University of Montpellier, which he never finished, he travelled throughout Europe, and spent time in Sicily trying to cure his tuberculosis. The search for a cure, he became an adept of homeopathy, which he practiced in such places as Sicily and Malta, before settling in Brazil in 1840. He attempted to expand his activities in 1842, by creating an Institute in Saí, Santa Catarina training locals in homeopathy, which he saw as a weapon in combatting the endemic diseases within underprivileged communities - especially the Afro-Brazilian one.

Inspired by the utopian socialism of Charles Fourier, Mure also created a Phalanstère near São Francisco do Sul, which expanded to surrounding areas such as Vila da Glória. He received backing from Antero Ferreira de Brito and the rest of Santa Catarina's government of the period, but the project was not to survive.

He left for Rio de Janeiro in 1843, and founded the Instituto Homeopático do Brasil, serving as its president until 1848. In 1852, he started homeopathical activities in Cairo, Alexandria, and other areas of Egypt. He died there six years later.