Some
Abiding Themes Hewn from British Homeopathic History
by Peter MorrellAllen Ginsberg is reabsorbed into the Buddhafields of
Infinite Peace – Peter Morrell
Some Abiding Themes Hewn from British Homeopathic
HistoryHomeopathic remedies do not heal
directly, but, like other natural healing modalities, act indirectly to
stimulate the innate healing powers of the organism: “remember
that it is our duty to help nature as far as possible do her job,”
[1; 225]. Medicine involves an attempt “to restore health an
attempt to restore balance,” [2; 1], for true “health
is simply the balanced life,” [2; 4]
The Old Guard Who Resist Change
In
contrast to devotees of high potency, for doctors like “Drysdale low
dilutions did best and he found no advantage above the 3rd
decimal,” [3; 184]. Thus the 3x became the officially approved
and standard tool of UK homeopathic practice from 1830 to 1900. The
early UK homeopaths therefore comprised “a remarkably able
cohort of 3x men Yeldham, Galley Blackley, Byres Moir, Washington
Epps, Knox Shaw, etc,” [4; 119], to which we can also add the
names of “John Epps, Curie, David Wilson as well as Alfred Pope,
Richard Hughes, David Dyce Brown,” [4; 123], “Bayes,
Leadam and Dudgeon,” [4; 119]. Dudgeon, for example, was “critical
of Hahnemanns Psora theory and of dynamisation,” [3; 181],
and he was not very happy either about the increasing use of nosodes. In
reporting to colleagues on his US trip to the AIH congress in 1876, Dr
Richard Hughes “was discouraging about Coopers introduction
of new remedies Lippe and Hering came in for unfavourable comment,
and so did Hempel, who was accused of Swedenborgian mysticism,”
[3; 187]
Therefore,
those British doctors who “refused to remain in bondage to
tangible dosage,” [4; 120] and bravely elected to adopt the
high potency methods, soon had to face “the prejudice and bias
of the old guard of Hughes former students, Goldsborough, Neatby and
Byres Moir,” [1; 225]. A measure of just how entrenched this
outright opposition to change was, can be judged from the fact that “Dr
Robert Cooper reading a paper lauding the use of nosodes, was stopped
in his address, hissed, and compelled to leave the meeting the
assembly refusing to hear him further,” [4; 120]. Such
sustained “opposition from the old guard who prescribed the 6th
potency daily for months on end,” [1; 226] rendered the high
potency pioneers even more resolved “to break with tradition of
the low potency men,” [5; 135]. For example, Dr Lees Templeton,
“next to Sir John Weir was the master of Kentian homeopathy
and many doctors came from home and abroad to hear his lectures and to
attend his ward rounds, for he practised what he preached.” [6;
142]Hahnemann found at an early stage that
people are “hypersensitive to the similar remedy,” [7;
7] and it was the avoidance of such aggravations that first inspired him
to reduce his doses. Afterall, the use of high potencies did not rest
solely upon the crutches of theory. Lest we forget, “Hahnemann
took ten years to test his general rule [similia] before he used
potencies at all the infinitesimal dose is not laid down on
theoretical grounds [he] developed it from experiment alone [which
was] Hahnemanns doctrine and practice throughout his life,”
[8; 169]. Thankfully, there also existed those more enlightened older
British homeopaths who did change their views and embrace new methods:
until “Mr [Clarence Granville] Hey [c.1875-c.1950] came to the
hospital [c.1905] anything above a 3x potency was anathema to Dr Burford [but]
he altered his views and gradually used 6, 12, 30 and 200, and finally
he used the highest potencies,” [9; 172].In due course of time, the Kentian
methods entirely eclipsed ‘the 3x men’: Dr Arthur Thomson [c.1910-1980] “practised
homeopathy in Hull from 1934 until his retirement in 1969 [offering]
classical Kentian therapeutics in partnership with his wife Dr Margaret
Templeton,” [10; 111], though pockets of resistance inevitably
remained scattered here and there: Dr Walker [1908-83] worked with Dr
Barlee in Cambridge, who was very much “schooled in French
homeopathy low potency organ remedies, a field tending to neglect the
prevailing Kentian approach of that time,” [11; 87]
Superior Qualities
A
good homeopath must possess in good measure two special qualities above
all others a thorough knowledge of materia medica and a deep empathy
for the patient in other words, knowledge of drugs and knowledge of
how to match them to people. The latter necessarily involves the rare
skill of bringing out all the main elements of the patients case. Dr
Borland possessed “an amazing knowledge of the drugs in the
homeopathic pharmacopoeia and their minutiae of difference combined
with abundant sympathy and understanding of the patient,” [12;
133]. Homeopaths must strive to attain the “ability of seeing almost
intuitively a drug picture, stamped [as it were] across the face of any
patient a lightning facility to match the drug for a particular sick
patient,” [12; 135]. In assessing figures like Borland, one
always has to appreciate the sheer “weight of clinical
experience behind his lectures,” [12; 134]. This is the reason
why Dr Borland “drummed into me, “learn materia
medica” ” [13; 288]. The homeopath gazes through a maze
of symptoms, parts, and disease labels, forever looking deeper, being “always
interested in the whole man, body, mind and spirit,” [12; 133].
Afterall “the patient is the only one who can really tell what
is the matter,” [13; 288]
As
with patients, all drugs have their characteristic features that mark
them out from all others: “the thirstlessness of Ant tart is a
great and important symptom in diagnosing the remedy in, say, a
broncho-pneumonia,” [4; 137]; it is “useless to
prescribe Aconite for a patient of calm and equable disposition, for
subjects poisoned with Aconite are excited, frightened and restless,”
[7; 5]. Patients who need “Nux vomica [are] highly irritable
and bad-tempered,” people [7; 5]. Dr John Paterson always “described
Lachesis as the Garden of Eden the serpent, sex, religion and
jealousy,” [14; 202]. The Arsenic patient is always noted for
being “meticulously neat in his dress and in his thinking to
straighten pictures slightly askew and being always prepared in an
emergency,” [1; 227] Undoubtedly, it is this recognition of
materia medicas central importance that inspired a physician like
Margaret Tyler to “read a drug each night before retiring,”
[15; 92]Not very much experience is required
to confer upon homeopaths a “profound conviction in the power of
the homeopathic remedy a steadfast refusal to dabble in new allopathic
drugs his knowledge of homeopathic materia medica was so wide and his
skill in applying it so great that he did not need much else,”
[16; 326]. Dr Weir always infected others with “his tremendous
belief in homeopathy,” [1; 228]. Such an attitude should not be
condemned too hastily as blind faith, but as flowing naturally from many
years of experience of relying solely upon a single refined approach
that yields good results and rarely disappoints a busy clinician.
Kindly, Cheerful and Brilliant
The
attitude and demeanour of doctors has long attracted much comment. In
homeopathy, certain personal qualities have always been highly prized.
The good physician is “utterly unselfish in thought, word and
deed, his actions were based on truth and righteousness,” [2;
5]. Dr Charles Wheeler, for example, was “a brilliant physician an
ornament to any society in which he moved,” [2; 8]; “his
whole being seemed to radiate love for his fellow creatures,”
[2; 6]. In the case of Dr F Bodman, people referred repeatedly to his
“goodness, compassion wisdom and a great zest for life.”
[17; 221]Dr Quin was referred to as “this
brilliant young physician,” [18; 78], and “Thackeray
defended him as a very kind and very good natured and serviceable
man,” [18; 80], such that even “the then Prince of
Wales [later King Edward VII] regarded him as a dear friend.”
[18; 82] So many homeopaths were deeply beloved by their patients and
widely admired and respected as men of deep compassion, warm human
feelings and great skill. Dr Epps passed away “as gently as he
had lived.” [19; 525]However, “all was not gold
that glittered and a rugged casket might contain priceless gems,”
[9; 168]. Some possessed an outward hardness or rugged countenance that
disguised their true feelings for people. For example, Dr George Burford
possessed “extremely fine feelings and sensitiveness which lay
hidden beneath his outward appearance of reserve,” [9; 168]. He
“had always stuck to his guns in the cause of homeopathy [as]
a doughty champion,” [9; 169], and also “took the
greatest care of his patients conscientious and thorough,”
[9; 169]. Many of his colleagues admired “the tenacity of Dr
Burford a dominating personality full of ideas as to how best to
increase the knowledge of homeopathy throughout the profession,”
[9; 169]; and “no one waved the flag or blew the trumpet of
homeopathy better than did Dr Burford who took up the torch and blazed
the trail,” [9; 170]. In 1893 “he was the first English
homeopath to go to Berlin,” [9; 170] thus presenting “a
picturesque and striking figure of a great homeopath.” [9; 171]
Colleagues
admired Dr Quintons “sunny disposition and charming
personality consistent good humour [and] musical ability,”
[20; 101]; his colleagues “prized his wonderful cheeriness,
which was really quite infectious a real physician, willing and able
to enter into the difficulties of others with unsparing devotion he
did more than his share of the work he was unselfish.” [20;
145-6]Dr Dudley Wright [1868-1948] was “tolerant
and sympathetic with the shortcomings of others.” [21, 53] Such
numerous comments, scattered throughout the literature, reveal how
important a pleasant disposition is for a homeopath, enhancing their
ability to connect openly and empathically with a patient and thus to
place them at their ease in consultation. This in turn illuminates the
central importance of empathy in assisting the homeopath to bring out
the authentic details of the patients inner life that is of crucial
importance to obtaining the correct remedy.
Sources
[1] Frank Bodman, Sir John Weir Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 60.1, 1971, 224-228[2] Dr Charles Wheeler Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 37.1, April 1947, 1-11[3] Frank Bodman, Richard Hughes Memorial Lecture,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 59, 1970, 179-193[4] A Taylor-Smith, letter re Dr Borlands
Obituary, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50.2, July 1961, 288[5] Alva Benjamin, Dr Harold Fergie Woods Obituary,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50, 1961, 135[6] Dr William Lees Templeton Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 58, 1969, 142-143[7] Frank Bodman, Lecture to Osler Society, Oxford,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 44.2, 1955, 2-8[8] Dr Charles Wheeler, Reflections and
Recollections, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 34.4, 1944, 168-174[9] Dr George Burford Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 27, 1937, 164-175[10] Dr A Thomson Obituary, Brit. Homeo.
Jnl 69.1, April 1980, 111[11] Dr William T Walker Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 72.2, April 1983, 87[12] Stuart McAusland, Dr Douglas Borland Obituary,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50, 1961, 133-135[13] George Burford, Masters of Homeopathy: the
Persistence of Their Work Through Time II – the Dr Clarke Memorial
Meeting, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 21, Jan 1932, 116-143[14] Geoffrey Brown, Drs John and Elizabeth
Paterson, Brit. Homeo. Jnl 56, 1967, 201-218[15] Sir John Weir, Dr Margaret Tyler Obituary,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 33, 1943, 92-93[16] Dr Henderson Patrick Obituary, Brit.
Homeo. Jnl 48, 1959, 326[17] Dr Frank Bodman Obituary, Brit. Homeo.
Jnl 69.4, 1980, 220-222[18] Frank Bodman, The Life & Times of Dr Quin,
Brit. Homeo. Jnl 50, April 1960, 73-82[19] Dr Washington Epps Obituary, Brit.
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