| Carl Frank Fischer | |
| Birth Place: | Austria |
| Birth Name: | Carl Frank Fischer |
| Death Date: | 23 June 1893 |
| Education: | Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg |
Carl Frank Fischer (year of birth unknown – 23 June 1893) was a New Zealand doctor, homoeopath and viticulturist.
Fischer was born in Austria, and received a medical degree from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.[1] He migrated to New Zealand in the early 1850s.[1]
Fischer established his successful practice in Auckland after saving Jane Graham, wife of prominent politician George Graham, who was buried after a store collapsed.[2] [1]
Between 1855 and 1856 he published 12 issues of the Homeopathic Echo, the first medical journal in New Zealand.[3] In 1857 he founded the Homeopathic Association.[1]
In 1858 after the arrival of the Novara, Fischer became close friends with geologists Ferdinand Hochstetter and Julius Haast.[1]
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.[1] He was awarded the Great Gold Medal of Science and Art by the Emperor of Austria for services to natural history and medicine.[4] His daughter married Commander Burges Watson of the Royal Navy, after which she lived in China where her husband had been permanently posted.[1]
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.[5] [6]
Fischer married Prudence Florentine De Lattre, and together they had a daughter, Maria Theresa, who was born in Auckland.[1] Fischer lived in Takapuna, on the shores of Lake Pupuke, and was a prominent Auckland socialite.[1] Maria Theresa (also known as Marie Thérèse Fisher) married Commander Burges Watson in 1882.[7] 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.