by Louise Mclean
May 24, 2006
Sent to: letters@thetimes.co.uk
Sir,
In view of the recent press coverage of the speech of the Prince of Wales at
the WHO conference, I would like to point out some little known historical
facts concerning homeopathy.
Firstly, provision for homeopathic medicine in Britain
has always been part of the National Health Service since it began in 1948,
there currently being 5 homeopathic hospitals under the NHS.
The practice of homeopathic medicine flourished in both Europe
and the US
during the late 1800s and early 1900s and was spectacularly popular with
European royalty and British aristocracy, American entrepreneurs, literary
giants, and religious leaders. It is also practised nowadays in countries in South
America and is especially popular in India
with one hundred (four year) homeopathic medical schools and more than 220,000
homeopathic doctors.
In the United States
in the early 1900s there were 22 homeopathic medical schools and over 100
homeopathic hospitals, 60 orphanages and old people's homes and 1,000+
homeopathic pharmacies. Members of the American Medical Association had great
animosity towards homeopathy after its formation in 1847 and it was decided to
purge all local medical societies of physicians who were homeopaths. This purge
was successful in every state except Massachusetts
because homoepathy was so strong among the elite of Boston.
The AMA wanted to keep homoepaths out of their societies and discourage any
type of association with homeopaths. In 1855 the AMA established a code of
ethics which stated that orthodox physicians would lose their membership if
they even consulted with a homeopath. If a physician lost his membership, it
meant that in some States he no longer had a licence to practice medicine.
Drug companies were antagonistic towards homeopathy, collectively trying to
suppress it. The medical journals they published were used as mouthpieces
against homeopathy and in support of orthodox medicine.
At an AMA meeting, a respected orthodox physician said: 'We must admit that
we never fought the homeopath on matters of principles; we fought him because
he came into the community and got the business.' Economic issues played a
major role in what was allowed to be practised.
Homeopathy attracted support from many of the most respected members of
society in the US,
such as William James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa M. Alcott, Mark Twain
and in Britain
among its supporters were Charles Dickens, W.B. Yeats, William Thackarey,
Benjamin Disraeli, Yehudi Menuhin. Other famous supporters were Dostoevsky,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Mahatma Ghandi.
The aristocratic patronage of homeopathy in the UK
extending well into the 1940's and beyond can be easily demonstrated. In the
Homeopathic Medical Directories there are lists of patrons of the dispensaries
and hospitals. They read like an extract from Burkes or Debretts. (See A
History of Homeopathy in Britain
by Peter Morrell, Honorary Research Associate in the History of Medicine, Staffordshire
University, UK. www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/articles/ukhomhistory.shtml
)
John D. Rockefeller referred to it as 'a progressive and aggressive step in
medicine' and was under homeopathic care throughout the latter part of his life
living to 99 years of age. A strong advocate of homeopathy, major grants of
between $300-$400 million he intended for homeopathic institutions were instead
used for orthodox medical institutions in the early 1900s, under pressure from
his son and his financial advisor, Frederick Gates.
May 24, 2006
