Historiographically, Coulter and Morrell both argue that homoeopaths in the nineteenth century were well-educated and better-quali ed medical practitioners.1 In the
previous chapter I have shown that, although many homoeopathic practitioners were well-connected, ardent homoeopathic practitioners included laymen and medical practitioners, some of whom did not follow the licensing system. However, Coulter and Morrell's arguments are not entirely inaccurate. In this chapter, I will turn my focus to how some medical practitioners utilised a `scienti c' homoeopathy for a medical reform, primarily in the area of theory and practice. Many of these medical practitioners were indeed elite physicians in terms of education and medical innovations. This chapter is about these medical practitioners and their interpretation of homoeopathy. I want to emphasise that these medical practitioners were in
one way or another connected to the various social networks I discussed in the previous chapter.
3.1 General grounds for acceptance
Most historians agree that to explain the sudden popularity of homoeopathy, one
has to look into the doubts and dissatisfactions with contemporary medicine experienced
1. Coulter, Homeopathic In uences in Nineteenth-century Allopathic Therapeutics: A Historical and Philosophical Study, 15; Morrell, British Homeopathy during Two Centuries,
92102.
87
88 CHAPTER 3. PROFESSIONAL PHYSICIANS
by both laymen and medical practitioners. As Porter pointed out: pre-modern medicine was beset by formidable di culties regarding its public face, professional organization, ethical codes and scienti c authority.2 Hahnemann's proposal oered a timely alternative medical system with both theoretical and practical grounds for medical practitioners and Victorian reformers. The medical experience of probably the rst lay homoeopath, Thomas Uwins (17821857), a famous painter of the
Royal Academy, summarises medicine in the early nineteenth century.
[Thomas Uwins] had seen much in the practice of medicine which appeared to him to be of a doubtful character, and the uncertainty which everywhere prevailed shook his faith in the old system. He was old enough to recollect the Cullenian system of depletion, and also the Brunonian system of repletion; and what came forcibly upon his mind was the little attention paid to xed principles, and the circumstance that all physicians for the time being, patronized those which were considered the fashionable medicines of the day, whether they encouraged the lancet and blister, or, on the other hand, the copious use of port-wine and brandy.3
It was therefore not di cult for British medical practitioners to share Hahnemann's motivation for proposing a scienti c medical system with certainties. In a letter to Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (17621836), a prominent medical reformer and also a life-long friend,4 Hahnemann stated painfully that there was no valid theory, but only hypothesis concerning the cause of diseases, and all he could do as a doctor was to give substances to his patients which owed their place in the Materia Medica to an arbitrary decision.5 Hahnemann was quite ready to admit that his patients would probably have done better without him.6
2. Roy Porter, The rise of medical journalism in Britain to 1800, in Medical Journals and Medical Knowledge, ed. W. F. Bynum, Stephen Lock, and Roy Porter (London: Routledge, 1992), 9.
3. Sampson, The Concluding Task of the Disciples of Homoeopathy, 3132.
4. Hahnemann was one of the German physicians who lamented that medicine failed the German Enlightement's ideal of an exact science. This lament led to a movement amongst German physicians to reform medicine, based on the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (17241804). The enthusiasm amongst German physicians for nding an exact medicine sometimes even ended up in physical violence, see Michael Emmans Dean, Homeopathy and
`The Progress of Science', History of Science 39 (2001): 256258.
5. Samuel Hahnemann, The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann, trans. Robert Ellis Dudgeon (New York: William Radde, 1852), 511512.
6. Robert Ellis Dudgeon, Hahnemann: The Founder of Scienti c Therapeutics, being the Third Hahnemannian Lecture, 1882 (London: E. Gould & Son, 1882), 37.
3.2. A SCIENTIFIC HOMOEOPATHY 89
3.2 A scienti c homoeopathy
Whether Hahnemann's homoeopathy was a medical system based upon mere rational speculations or actual experiences has been an issue of debate amongst homoeopathic practitioners and historians since the outset. Coulter argues that there have been two modes of medical thinking since ancient Greek medicine. The rational school emphasises therapeutic approaches based on medical principles or laws. The empiricist school focuses on nding eective treatments, even when there is no valid theory to explain the e cacy of these methods. Coulter argues for the superiority of the empiricist school and that homoeopathy belongs to this camp.7 Dean, also, considers Hahnemann's philosophy as a Romantic German reaction towards the rational ideal of the French Enlightenment. According to Dean, Hahnemann's
homoeopathy was relatively empiricist compared to the French rationalism.8 Nevertheless, Hahnemann did mark the dierence between his new medical system and the
existing system by `rationality.' He published his new system under the title, Organon der rationellen Heilkunde nach homöopathischen Gesetzen in 1810. However, from the second edition on Hahnemann changed the title to Organon der Heilkunst.
Whether Hahnemann saw medicine as a `science' (Heilkunde) or an `art' (Heilkunst) has also raised concerns. Early homoeopathic supporters tended to emphasise
homoeopathy as a science, while later proponents prioritised medicine as an `art.'9 It is beyond the scope of this research to investigate Hahnemann's medical philosophy.
The discussion here is to illustrate that Hahnemann's homoeopathy can be interpreted in dierent ways; be it rational, empiricist, science or art.
As I have shown in the previous chapter, `science' was an important rhetoric for homoeopathic supporters to justify their choice. The medical practitioners, especially,
`found' in homoeopathy the potential of an ideal scienti c medicine for the medical reform. As Warner has illustrated that `science' had multiple meanings in medicine in nineteenth-century Britain,10 Victorian supporters also found homoeopathy ful lled their dierent ideals of science. First of all, homoeopathy ful lled the ethical code of a benevolent treatment. It was much milder compared to heroic treatments, and hence more civilised and rational. Moreover, it met the Victorian standard of science. It had a clearly-stated prescription principle and a system
7. Harris L. Coulter, Divided Legacy: A History of Schism in Medical Thought, 184210.
8. Dean, Homeopathy and `The Progress of Science'.
9. I will discuss this issue further in Part II. James Tyler Kent (18491916) was one of the most in uential homoeopaths to address whether medicine should be an art, not a science. See James Tyler Kent, Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy (B. Jain, 2011), i-vi.
10. Warner, The History of Science and the Sciences of Medicine.
90 CHAPTER 3. PROFESSIONAL PHYSICIANS
of drug testing, both well-encapsulated in the criteria of rationality proposed by the Enlightenment. Most importantly, to medical practitioners, homoeopathic principles and its well-documented Materia Medica assured them that there was a practical tool-kit to combat disease. The statistics of homoeopathic success in various hospitals proved that this tool-kit could be eective.11 Quin was soon joined by these medical practitioners in the 1830s. Before I investigate further into how they interpreted homoeopathic practice, I would like to rst discuss how these
medical practitioners connected with each other, and what kind of medical practitioners joined the scienti c debate of homoeopathy in nineteenth-century Britain.
3.2.1 German and French in uences
The foreign nature of homoeopathy made it primarily accessible to those medical practitioners who were better-educated or from wealthy backgrounds. They mainly learned about homoeopathy and connected with each other through medical journals and a medical education abroad. As the early British journals did not carry much accurate information about homoeopathy,12 before 1834 one could only learn about homoeopathy through foreign medical journals.13 It was common among wealthy medical students to travel abroad to further their medical education. Medical
students came from all over Europe to Vienna and Paris to learn the latest developments in medicine, and some established life-long friendships.
Many prominent British homoeopaths in the nineteenth century shared the common experience of the medical education on the continent, which explains German
and French in uences on the idea of science in British homoeopathy in the early
11. Arthur C. Clifton, Therapeutic Changes in General Medicine during the Victorian Era:
Their Meaning and Lessons for Homoeopaths, The Presidential Address delivered at the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at Liverpool, Sept 22, 1887, Monthly Homoeopathic Review 31, no.
10 (October 1887): 577599.
12. The rst time homoeopathy was mentioned in Britain was in the The Lancet of 18267.
However, the article did not do a good job in informing its readers about what the medical system was. Hahnemann was spelt as Hahlnemann and homoeopathy as homooepathia.
Nicholls, Homoeopathy and the Medical Profession, 106.
13. On the continent, like most other irregular medicines, homoeopaths nally published their own journals to spread their opinions. In 1821 Hahnemann's favourite students, Dr.
John Ernst Stapf (17881860) and Dr. Gustav Wilhelm Gross (17941847), established the
rst homoeopathic journal, which continued to appear until 1843. In 1832 another journal was founded The Allgemeine Homoeopathische Zeitung, which after going through various editors, has survived to the present day. Mahendra Singh, Pioneers of Homeopathy: Illustrated Biographies of Personalities and Their Contributions (New Delhi, India: B. Jain, 2003), 118121;
British homoeopaths primarily learned about the new medical systems through these journals.
Everest and Hull, A Popular View of Homoeopathy, 13.
3.2. A SCIENTIFIC HOMOEOPATHY 91
days. In the early 1840s, Robert Ellis Dudgeon (18201904), John James Drysdale (18161890) and John Rutherford Russell (18161867) were all fellow students in Vienna. Drysdale's younger brother was Charles Robert Drysdale (18291907), the founder and President of the Malthusian League; though never an avowed homoeopath, he was sympathetic to his brother's practice. Another fellow-student was William Wilde (18151876), father of Oscar Wilde and himself an eye and ear surgeon. He reported that homoeopathy had a higher success rate than allopathy in curing cholera in Austria in the 1830s.14 While in Vienna, Drysdale and Russell studied with one of Hahnemann' students, Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Fleischmann (17991868). Dudgeon was not interested in homoeopathy while in Austria.
3.2.2 The scienti c homoeopathy as represented in the BJH
The establishment of a professional a liation and a professional journal are often argued to facilitate the process of creating a professional identity. Nicholls, for example, considers the establishment of the BHS by Quin in 1844 and the BJH in 1843 as milestones in the professionalisation of homoeopathy.15 Nevertheless, the BHS and the BJH were developed independently and while the former attempted to establish an elite homoeopathy, the latter emphasised a scienti c one. In 1843, while Quin was active in London, Drysdale settled in Liverpool and with his fellow students in Germany, Russell and Francis Black (18201882), started the rst
journal of homoeopathy, the BJH. In 1843, there was a lack of practical and reliable information about homoeopathy in the country. From the three editors' point of view, most pamphlets, published by populist supporters, simply served as simple domestic manuals. The BJH was a quarterly journal aiming to facilitate medical practitioners' practice by presenting provings of various remedies.16 The journal soon won over its rst `convert.' Dudgeon was asked by Drysdale to translate works from German for the BJH. Dudgeon was gradually convinced by what he
translated and eventually became the most important English translator of homoeopathic literature. Russell and Drysdale stayed on the editorial board until their retirement in 1858 and 1877 respectively. Dudgeon joined the board in 1851 until the nal year of the Journal in 1884.
The homoeopathy presented by the BJH was `scienti c' and `rational,' and based
14. Singh, Pioneers of Homeopathy: Illustrated Biographies of Personalities and Their Contributions, 7677.
15. Nicholls, Homoeopathy and the Medical Profession, 110113.
16. Introduction, The British Journal of Homoeopathy 1 (1): ivii.
92 CHAPTER 3. PROFESSIONAL PHYSICIANS
upon reliable experiences. According to the BJH, homoeopathy oered a rational and scienti c base to establish a medical system distinct from contemporary medical systems. The homoeopathic principle, Similia similibus curantur, was arrived by
a train of admirable inductive reasoning,17 and hence distinguished itself from the a priori theories of Brown and Broussais. It took belief to appreciate the latter theories.18 Furthermore, the rational medical principle would have to be
substantiated by laborious experimental observations, which required the practitioners' constant endeavour to progress and improve the system. Therefore, homoeopathy
embodied the idea of progress, and was to be regarded at present as a system of medicine in the course of development, being the adaptation to practice of a great general principle.19 Therefore, the progress of homoeopathy would bene t from those in other branches of medical science. The BJH promised to acquaint its readers with the progress of pathological anatomy, a pure science of observation,
as the discipline is not only compatible with, but absolutely necessary to, the
perfection of the Homoeopathic method.20 However, the BJH followed Hahnemann's suggestion to reject the frivolous classi cations of Nosologists, as their theories were based upon speculations, instead of observation and experiments.21 As the result, the BJH reported progress not only on homoeopathy, but also on other important Victorian unorthodox medicines, such as hydropathy and mesmerism, completed by the latest discoveries in pathology, chemistry, physiology, and even Pasteur's lectures.
The establishment of a professional journal marked the beginning of a separate homoeopathic identity from other medical practitioners. On the one hand, the editors seemed to be reluctant to break away from other medical practitioners.
The editors regretted that they had to make this choice due to the rejection of homoeopathy by the majority of the medical profession. In Germany, homoeopathic related articles were shut out from most medical journals, and therefore Hahnemann and his followers were compelled to separate themselves into a distinct body, and
to found a periodical literature of their own, containing the results of their investigations.22 On the other hand, they recognised the incompatibility between homoeopathy and
the existing medical practice. They suspected the main reason for this rejection was that to accept Hahnemann's theory would cause a revolution in medical
17. Introduction, iv.
3.2. A SCIENTIFIC HOMOEOPATHY 93
practice.23
In the 1840s, the only professional instructions in homoeopathy were given by
Curie in the Hahnemann Hospital in London. Determined to propagate homoeopathy amongst the medical practitioners, Drysdale and Russell edited and published, in 1845, An Introduction to the Study of Homoeopathy, where various papers from the BJH and some other sources were selected.24 At least nine introductory books on homoeopathy were already published before 1845. However, almost all of them were published by those who believed in the popularisation of homoeopathy.25 Therefore Drysdale and Russell prepared the material to present the subject in a way not repulsive to the professional.26
Drysdale and Russell presented a homoeopathy very dierent from those who promoted it as a domestic self-help medicine. Apparently, Drysdale and Russell
reckoned that to investigate homoeopathy with a sceptical mind would be a professional attitude to deal with a new medical system. The most important dierence between the Introduction and the pamphlets published previously was the emphasis that homoeopathy should only be accepted after testing it scienti cally.
[I]f Homoeopathy [. . . ] boasts of adding to the scienti c conquests of the mind, and of conducting to the greatest interests of the body, [. . . ] the validity of its claims should be tried before an authority commensurate with their magnitude in the severe rules of discipline which it enforces, and in the decisions without appeal, which it has a right to pronounce.27
23. Ibid.
24. John James Drysdale and J. Rutherfurd Russell, eds., An Introduction to the Study of Homoeopathy (London, Liverpool, Edinburgh: J. Leath, 1845).
25. Most of them are in the form of pamphlets, consisting of no more than sixty pages, thus easy to distribute and read among laymen. They are Everest and Hull, A Popular View of Homoeopathy; J. G. Millingen, Popular View of the Homoeopathic Doctrines (London: Churchill, 1837); Edward Williams, Digest of the Homoeopathic Principles (London: Henry Renshaw, 1837); Epps, The Rejected Cases; with a Letter to Thomas Wakley, Esq, M.P. On the Scienti c Character of Homoeopathy; John Epps, Homoeopathy and Its Principles Explained (London:
English Homoeopathic Association, 1850); Some are speci cally for domestic use, and appealing to women. They are Franz Hartmann, The Mother's Medical Assistant: Or, Homoeopathic Guide.
Translated and Abridged from the German (1838); John Epps, Domestic Homoeopathy; or Rules for the Domestic Treatment of the Maladies of Infants, Children, and Adults and for the Conduct and the Treatment During Pregnancy, Con nement, and Suckling (London: W. & J. Piper, 1842); Curie, Principles of Homoeopathy, Only the following two consisted of more complete introduction to homoeopathy. Paul François Curie, Practice of Homoeopathy (London, Paris:
J. B. Bailliere, Thomas Hurst, 1838).
26. Drysdale and Russell, An Introduction to the Study of Homoeopathy, iii.
27. Ibid., 1-2.
94 CHAPTER 3. PROFESSIONAL PHYSICIANS
3.2.3 Homoeopathy must be based upon scienti c theories
The critical appraisal of homoeopathy as proposed by Drysdale and Russell proceeded in two aspects: to compare homoeopathic theories to those of other scienti c disciplines, and to utilise large-scale trials and statistics to testify to the e cacy of homoeopathy.
Samuel Morison Brown's (18171856) On the Theory of Small Doses as included in the Introduction best illustrated the ideal of a scienti c homoeopathy.28 One of the most controversial aspects of homoeopathy was that of dosage. Thanks to the Nobel Prize winner, the French physicist Jean Perrin (18701942), whose work determined the Avogadro constant in 1909, we now know the criticism of
in nitesimal dose used by British homoeopaths in the nineteenth century was a relative criticism compared to heroic doses. The most prevalent potencies prescribed by British homoeopaths in the nineteenth century were low potencies, such as
non-diluted tinctures, 1X, 3X or 6X.29 As Perrin's result suggests, only those potencies above 24X or 12C were in nitesimal doses, which were rarely used back in the
nineteenth century. Nevertheless, compared to then popular heroic treatments,
remedies diluted to one-hundredth, one ten-thousandth, one millionth or one billionth (corresponding to the First, Second, Third and Sixth dilution of homoeopathic
remedies respectively)30 were ridiculously low enough to be called incomprehensible.
While numerous historical and contemporary examples could be found in support of the law of similars, the most famous criticiser of homoeopathy, Sir John Forbes (17871861), along with other prominent homoeopaths, argued that Hahnemann established the dilution and succession of remedies based purely upon experience, instead of reasoning.31 Hahnemann did not oer any sensible theory nor justi cations;
he also did not oer consistent advice on how to decide the potency of remedies in
28. Samuel Morison Brown, On the Theory of Small Doses, in An Introductory to the Study of Homoeopathy, ed. John James Drysdale and J. Rutherfurd Russell (London: J. Leath, 1845), 152178.
29. Peter Morrell, Kent's In uence on British Homeopathy, http://www.homeoint.org/
morrell/articles/pm_kent.htm (accessed March 6, 2012).
30. It is necessary to point out that the system of the denotation of potency, and the method of preparing mother tinctures were chaotic in the nineteenth century. It was not until 1870 that the BHS published The British Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia to standarise the preparation of mother tinctures. The British Homoeopathic Society, British Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia (London: The British Homoeopathic Society, 1870); The system of the denotation of potency, on the other hand, was not of major concern to the BHS, as most potencies used were low.
Thomas Skinner (18251906), the most prominent British high-potency prescriber, advocating to standardise the procedure of making higher potency remedies. Thomas Skinner, Dr. Skinner's Centesimal Fluxion Potentizer, Organon 1 (1 1878): 4553.
31. John Forbes, Homoeopathy, Allopathy, and `Young Physic' (New York: William Radde, 1846).
3.2. A SCIENTIFIC HOMOEOPATHY 95
prescription. Most popularisers of homoeopathy were content with the explanation
prescription. Most popularisers of homoeopathy were content with the explanation