History of Homeopathy
by Herbert Rothouse, R.Ph., M.S.
Thomas Carlyle wrote that "history is only the biography of great men". If it is true that great people are not formed by the
times they live in, that it is the times that are formed by the great people, Samuel Hahnemann, M.D., must rank among the
truly great men of medicine. He stands with the ancients, Hippocrates, Galen, and Paracelsus, and in more recent times with
Andreas Vesalius, Ambroise ParT, William Harvey, RenT Laennec, Ignaz Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, John Hunter, and others.
Dr. Hahnemann was born in Meisen, Germany, in 1755 and died at the age of 88 in Paris. His brilliance as a child was
evident, as he learned Greek and Latin by age 12. By age 24, he also knew Hebrew, English, and French, and had graduated
from medical school in Vienna. Within a few years, he left the practice of medicine to be a writer and translator of medical
texts into German. It is said that he did this because of his disillusionment with the therapies of his time. With the translation
of the text Treatise of the Materia Medica by the Scottish physician William Cullen, M.D. (who was a professor at the University of
Glasgow, Scotland, and a professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, also in Scotland), the history of modern
medicine was changed.1 The year was 1790.
Dr. Cullen spent 16 pages of his text describing the nature of the cinchona bark, the source of quinine. It was known that the
bark could treat malaria, but no one knew how. Dr. Cullen thought he knew: it was the bitterness and astringent qualities of
the bark that confronted the fever and malaise of malaria. Dr. Hahnemann could not accept this explanation. Having already
studied and translated other texts, he knew that there were many drugs even more bitter and more astringent that were
useless against malaria. Dr. Hahnemann's own Materia Medica2
eventually became a standard text in German medical schools.
(In the Treatise1
Dr. Cullen wrote: "I consider the Peruvian bark to be [a] substance in which the qualities of bitter and
astringent are combined... As we have before shown that these qualities in their separate state give tonic medicines, so it will
be readily allowed that, conjoined together, they may give one still more powerful."
Dr. Hahnemann, the physician and translator, thus became the scientist and experimenter. Modern medical experimentation
begins here. His method is simple:
Dr. Hahnemann now asked: "What will happen if...?" As quinine was widely used with success to treat malaria-infected
patients, he knew that the bark was nontoxic in small doses, so his first experiment was to ingest it. Following that one dose, about a teaspoonful of bark, Dr. Hahnemann began to develop the symptoms
of malaria -- the chills, the malaise, the terrible headaches. Because he knew he did not have the disease, he wondered what
had happened to his body.
He consulted Hippocrates for the answer. Hippocrates had written some 22 centuries earlier that what cures a condition will also cause it. The Greek word
pharmakon
means both "medicine" and "poison". This was the answer Dr. Hahnemann was
seeking. "Like cures like." The
substance that causes symptoms in a
healthy person will treat those same
symptoms in an unhealthy person. Dr.
Hahnemann, in rediscovering an old
principle, founded a new medical
discipline: homeopathy.
In this discipline, Dr. Hahnemann
proposed remedies, free from all harmful
effects, as agents of cure. He offered
objectivity, simplicity, originality, and
independence in an era of medical
arrogance.
Mixed U.S. Reception
When homeopathy was first introduced
into America, it was the period of
Jacksonian democracy. From 1824
onward, America entered an era of distrust
of not only the wealthy but of any elite well-educated group. There was no state
licensing of physicians or medical schools.
Between 1830 and 1840, the number of
such schools doubled. The medical
education of the time consisted, at best, of
16 weeks of lectures with little, if any,
clinical work. With only very few drugs
available and only the barest of an
education, almost anyone could become a
doctor, and almost anyone did.
It seemed an auspicious time for
homeopathy, and it was. It was safe, it
was effective, it was inexpensive (as it still
is today). It was also packaged in kits for
the isolated farmers to use. Within the
cities, it was the most educated physicians
who began to use the new homeopathic
remedies, and the wealthiest patients who
began to ask for them.
In 1832, when homeopathy was no financial
threat, the New York County Medical Society
made Dr. Hahnemann an honorary member.
Fifteen years later, that honor was rescinded. At
that time, the American Medical Association
(AMA) had just been formed in response to the
Homeopathic Association. In 1846, the AMA
declared that homeopathy "would destroy the
science of medicine". But homeopathy prospered.
By 1860, there were more than 2400 homeopaths
in the country, and by 1900, 11,000. This
represented almost 15 percent of all physicians.
There were 22 medical schools and 100 hospitals.
In England, acceptance was almost universal
because of the endorsement of the British Royal
Family. From the 1830s onward, they had used
homeopathic physicians exclusively, and even
today, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles never travel without their personal homeopathic
kits.
As the number of homeopaths increased, so did
the animosity of the "regulars". Physicians
accused the homeopaths of success only from the
placebo effect. "Imagination," they called it. If
that was so, said the homeopaths, then go and do
the same. Of course, as the homeopaths cured
babies and infants who knew nothing of
placebos, the physicians had no reply, and
because the homeopath's remedies were gentle
and apparently safe, the mothers of America
called on them in increasing numbers to treat the
ills of their children.
The true source of the conflict between the two
disciplines, however, had nothing to do with the
effectiveness of the therapy. In fact, in 1842, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
M.D., Professor of Medicine at Harvard
University, said, "cures meant little. The truth of
medical doctrine has nothing to do with cures."
The professional relationship that started
amicably had deteriorated within 25 years to
name calling and insults entirely as a result of
competition. The regular physicians were losing
business to the homeopaths.
By 1855, the AMA had an anti-consultation clause
in its charter. This meant that any contact,
professional or otherwise, with a homeopath
would result in loss of state and county
membership, which could also mean loss of
license. In 1878, a physician in New London,
Connecticut, actually did lose his license. The
homeopath he met with and spoke to was his
wife. It is interesting to note that although
female physicians were well accepted in
homeopathic circles at that time, the AMA did
not admit women until 1916.
In New York State, homeopaths fared slightly
better. A law was passed in 1827 that permitted
physicians to sue for nonpayment of bills but did
not allow homeopaths to do the same. This law
was finally reversed in 1844. In 1871, a New York
Times
editorial noted this bitter conflict and sided
with the homeopaths, saying with no lack of
sarcasm, "better the patient should die under the
old remedies, than recover under the new".
Today, homeopathy is widely accepted in most
Western or industrialized countries except the
United States. In France, some 25 percent of all
pharmacies are homeopathic. In England, half of
all physicians either use or recommend
homeopathy. In India, it is taught in almost all
medical and pharmacy schools. If the reason for
opposition in the 19th century was competition,
what is the reason today when homeopathy holds
but the smallest portion of therapy? The answer I
think can be found in a quote from Leo Tolstoy.
He, of course, was not thinking of the AMA or
the Food and Drug Administration when he
wrote this, but the sentiments would fit.
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest
complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it
be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they
have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to
others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their
lives.
Recommended book:
Homeopathy
Made Simple
by R. Donald Papon
Info/Order book
More
books on homeopathy.
About The
Author
HERBERT HOTHOUSE, R.PH.,
M.S., lives in Boca Raton, Florida, USA, where he is a practicing
pharmacist and a licensed nutritionist. This article was first published
in the August 1999 issue of The American Druggist in response to letters
to the editor in their May 1999 issue that were critical of homoeopathy.
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