Excerpt from the homeopathic revolution: why famous people and cultural heroes choose Homeopathy.

Washington Irving

Washington Irving (1783-1859) was best known for writing The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, as well as several major biographies, including a four-volume set on America's first President, George Washington. Irving is said to have mentored authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe, and because Hawthorne and Longfellow were known advocates for homeopathic medicine, it is not surprising to learn that Washington Irving was too.

On February 21, 1854, Irving wrote to a friend: "I have found, in my own case, great relief from Homeopathy, to which I had recourse almost accidentally; for I am rather slow at adopting new theories" (Hendrick 1987:170). He went on to say that after homeopathic treatment, he was more able to continue his literary efforts. Later that same year, he wrote: "You ask me whether the homeopathics still keep me quite well. I really begin to have a great faith in them. The complaint of the head especially, which troubled me last year and obliged me to throw by my pen, has been completely vanquished by them."

It is not surprising that Irving chose Dr. John C. Peters of New York as his homeopath since he was both a respected clinician and the editor of a leading homeopathic journal of that time, The North American Journal of Homeopathy. Irving began consulting with Dr. Peters in 1852 due to recurrent symptoms of dizziness (Wershub 1965). Dr. Peters prescribed Cocculus indicus, made from an herb called Indian cockle (Peters 1860). (1) Irving continually called on care from Dr. Peters for himself and members of his family. Dr. Peters became a regular visitor at Irving's Sunnyside estate, and they developed a strong friendship. Dr. Peters determined that one of Irving's problems resulted from his own self-treatment with a conventional patent medicine. Irving treated himself with a remedy for catarrh (mucus) by snuffing it into his nostrils. Although this medicine dried up his nasal discharge temporarily, it soon led to a violent asthma attack.

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. had written a book extremely critical of homeopathy, though embarrassingly ill-informed on the subject. (2) Because Dr. Holmes had such respect for Washington Irving, the doctor chose to visit him and suggest treatment for Irving's asthma and cough. He prescribed medicated cigaretts and "Jonas Whitcomb's Cough Remedy" (a nineteenth-century patent medicine), without having examined his patient. (3) Dr. Peters wrote an admirably restrained reply to Holmes, suggesting that his treatment was not based on adequate understanding of this patient.

Dr. Peters gave Irving the patent medicine to show good faith toward Dr. Holmes, despite Holmes's bad-faith actions toward homeopathy. Irving experienced noticeable improvement that first night from this remedy. However, two days later, he suffered a severe nervous attack, and Dr. Peters then chose to use only homeopathic medicines for Irving (Hendrick 1987: 174). Temporary improvement followed by the development of different and more serious symptoms are typical results from conventional drugs of the nineteenth century as well as today, and while conventional physicians pride themselves on their ability to reduce or suppress symptoms, homeopaths have sharply criticized such treatments that provide short-term benefits but long-term problems.

At Irving's funeral, the famed writer-editor William Cullen Bryant gave the eulogy that was published in the New York Times (April 4, 1860). Irving's personal homeopathic medicine kit is on display at his Sunnyside home in Tarrytown, New York, which was bought by fellow homeopathic appreciator J.D. Rockefeller in 1945 and opened to the public in 1947. Today, Irving's home is a national historical landmark.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was one of England's most respected playwrights. Shaw is the only person ever to have won both a Nobel Prize (Literature in 1925) and an Academy Award (Best Screenplay for Pygmalion in 1938). In his play The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Shaw showed the dilemma that doctors inevitably face between their need to care for their patients and their need to practice, often using dangerous drugs and performing unnecessary operations in order to earn a livelihood.

In the play's preface, Shaw wrote:

  The test to which all methods of treatment are finally brought is
  whether they are lucrative to doctors or not. It would be difficult
  to cite any proposition less obnoxious to science than that advanced
  by Hahnemann, to wit, that drugs which in large doses produced
  certain symptoms counteract them in very small doses, just as in
  modern practice it is found that a sufficiently small inoculation
  with typhoid rallies our powers to resist the disease instead of
  prostrating us with it. But Hahnemann and his followers were
  frantically persecuted for a century by generations of
  apothecary-doctors whose incomes depended on the quantity of drugs
  they could induce their patients to swallow. These two cases of
  ordinary vaccination and homeopathy are typical of all the rest

He continued: "Here we have the explanation of the savage rancor that so amazes people who imagine that the controversy concerning vaccination is a scientific one. It has really nothing to do with science. Under such circumstances, vaccination would be defended desperately were it twice as dirty, dangerous, and unscientific in method as it really is." Thankfully, Shaw goes on to assert that times and things are changing, "Nowadays, however, the more cultivated folk are beginning to be so suspicious of drugs, and the incorrigibly superstitious people so profusely supplied with patent medicines that homeopathy has become a way of rehabilitating the trade of prescription compounding and is consequently coming into professional credit."

In 1932, Shaw wrote an essay, "Doctors' Delusions, Crude Criminology and Sham Education," which included a story about the homeopathic treatment he received for a hydrocele. This accumulation of fluid around the testicle normally requires surgery, but Shaw experienced a rapid cure without recurrence.

Shaw once challenged Sir Almroth Wright, a noted conventional physician, to look into homeopathy's ability to cure many "incurable" diseases. Wright expressed complete incredulity, while Shaw retorted that Wright had no scientific attitude or simple curiosity. This short conversation was a classic:

  Almroth said, "This thing is absurd and impossible; let me put it
  this way. Would you, Shaw, trouble to get out of your chair if I
  called from the next room. 'Do come in here and see what I have
  done - I have turned a pint of tea leaves into pure gold.'" Shaw
  responded back simply saying, "Certainly I would" (Coulter 1994:409).

Emil Adolf von Behring

Emil Adolf von Behring (1854-1917) won the first Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology for his discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin. Later, he discovered the tetanus anti-toxin. For many years he served as military captain of the medical corps to the Pharmacological Institute at the University of Bonn and then was given a position at the Hygiene Institute of Berlin in 1888 as assistant to Robert Koch (1843-1910), one of the pioneers of bacteriology. He then became a professor of hygienics in the Faculty of Medicine at the prestigious University of Marburg. Because of his significant discoveries in immunology, Behring retains a highly regarded place in its early history.

In 1892, Behring actually experimented with serial (homeopathic) dilutions and found paradoxically enhanced immunogenic activity, but he was advised to suppress this experiment due to the aid and comfort it would provide to homeopaths. Only after he won the Nobel Prize did he feel comfortable in making public these experiments (Behring 1905; Coulter 1994:97).

Behring broke from orthodox medical tradition by recognizing the value of the homeopathic law of similars:

  In spite of all scientific speculations and experiments regarding
  smallpox vaccination, Jenner's discovery remained an erratic blocking
  medicine, till the biochemically thinking Pasteur, devoid of all
  medical classroom knowledge, traced the origin of this therapeutic
  block to a principle which cannot better be characterized than by
  Hahnemann's word: homeopathic. Indeed, what else causes the
  epidemiological immunity in sheep, vaccinated against anthrax than
  the influence previously exerted by a virus, similar in character
  to that of the fatal anthrax virus? And by what technical term could
  we more appropriately speak of this influence, exerted by a similar
  virus than by Hahnemann's word "homeopathy"? I am touching here
  upon a subject anathematized till very recently by medical penalty:
  but if I am to present these problems in historical illumination,
  dogmatic imprecations must not deter me (Behring 1905).

Behring actually made a plea for homeopathy to be granted "citizenship of medicine" (medicinisches Biirgerrecht) and for it no longer to be taboo for physicians to practice it. Behring even said he would go to a homeopath himself: "If I were confronted with a hitherto incurable disease and could see no way to treat it other than homeopathy, I can assure you that I would not be deterred from following this course by dogmatic considerations" (Behring 1905; Coulter 1994: 98).

Behring also showed a certain sophisticated understanding of Hahnemann's contribution to medicine and pharmacology: "The concept that the sick person reacts differently to medications than the healthy one, which had to be established empirically by therapeutic trials, also played a role in Hahnemann's thinking" (from a Behring article in 1915, quoted in Coulter 1994: 96).

The point here is that Behring understood that homeopaths determine the effectiveness of a medicine by conducting experiments in toxicology in which relatively healthy people are given repeated doses of a substance until symptoms of overdose are created. Every simple or complex substance will create its own toxicological syndrome of symptoms, and homeopathic doses of that substance can and will heal people who have that similar symptom complex. The logic here is because symptoms of illness, from whatever cause, are adaptive efforts of the body to fight infection or adapt to some sort of stress, the use of a medicinal agent that mimics the body's defenses will provide immunological benefit to the sick person.

In 1898, Behring asserted that Koch's discovery of the Tuberculin bacilli and his use of it to treat people for tuberculosis falls under the homeopathic principle, as does Pasteur's rabies therapy (Coulter 1994:96). Koch and Pasteur could not and certainly would not give homeopathy credit for any insight or contribution to their discovery, or if they did, they and their new medicine would have been harshly attacked.

By the mid-1890s, as a result of Koch's claims, London homeopath Dr. James Compton-Burnett (1840-1901) (4) used homeopathic doses of the tuberculous sputum to treat 54 people, calling this medicine Bacillinum. Compton-Burnett aptly differentiated his medicine from Koch's:

  The difference between our old friend [homeopathic] Tuberculinum or
  Bacillinum and that of Koch lies in the way it is obtained; our is
  the virus of the natural disease itself, while Koch's is the same
  virus artificially obtained in an incubator from colonies of bacilli
  thriving on beef-jelly; ours is the chick hatched under the hen.
  Koch's is the chick hatched in an incubator (Compton-Burnett
  1890: xiii-xiv).

Charles Frederick Menninger, MD

Charles Frederick Menninger, MD (1862-1953) was the co-founder (with his son, Karl Menninger, MD) of the famed Menninger Clinic, the internationally respected mental health clinic, initially located in Topeka, Kansas. He was a homeopathic physician and the head of his local homeopathic medical society. He also authored numerous articles published in homeopathic medical journals. In one of these articles, he stated with vigor: "Homeopathy is wholly capable of satisfying the therapeutic demands of this age better than any other system or school of medicine." He further asserted: "It is imperative that we exhaust the homeopathic healing art before resorting to any other mode of treatment, if we wish to accomplish the greatest success possible" (Menninger 1897: 430).

In another article, he declared the following:

  It is no easy matter to conform to all the mathematic requirements
  that constitute the homeopathic law of cure. It is an easy matter
  resort to "general principles." But how varied the result! The one
  has demonstrated the existence of the great law of therapeutics--
  similar similibus curentur (Latin: "let likes cure like." the basic
  principle of homeopathy)--the greatest boon God has given to
  disease-stricken men, and the other has been as barren of fruit as
  the desert of Sahara (Menninger 1896: 317-318).

Later in this article, he further asserted: "I have found that the element of success in homeopathic prescribing lies in the closest study of the details, the faithful writing out of all the symptoms of the case and noting the effects of the minimum dose of the single remedy" (Menninger 1896:320). Clearly, Menninger was not just a homeopath; he was what would be called a "Hahnemannian homeopath."

Biographies of Menninger, like so many other biographies of homeopaths and their patients, report on his homeopathic training and practice in a biased and ill-informed way. For instance, Walker Winslow's The Menninger Story (1956) stated that C. F. Menninger "made his final break with that sect and was accepted into the County Medical Society as a full member" in 1898 (p. 104). It is typical for those who disliked homeopathy to call its practitioners a "sect," as though it were some sort of religious order. Further, it should be noted that Menninger may have joined the local medical society, as many homeopathic doctors tried to do, in order to get and share information about new advances in medicine and old tried-and-true medical practices. However, he was chairman of the Materia Medica Section of the American Institute of Homeopathy's annual conference in 1902 (TAIH, 1902), and he was a dues-paying member of the American Institute of Homeopathy until at least 1908 (TAIH, 1908). Winslow acknowledged that throughout his life Menninger "did not hesitate to use homeopathic remedies when he thought they were needed" (1956: 105), though like too many other historians who were antagonistic to homeopathy, Winslow ignored homeopathy and provided little detail on Menninger's passion for an use of homeopathic medicines.

Frederic Chopin

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer who is one of the most famous and influential composers for the piano. During the 1840s, half of the population of France and England contracted tuberculosis, and two-thirds of its victims died. When Chopin became ill with tuberculosis, he and his lover at the time, the French novelist and feminist George Sand (a.k.a., Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, 1804-1876), sought care from Dr.Jean Jacques Molin (1797-1849), a homeopathic physician who became Chopin's most trusted doctor. Dr. Molin was twice elected president of the Society of Homeopathic Medicine in France. Chopin claimed that Molin had the "secret of getting me back on my feet again" (Atwood 1999: 349). During the harsh winter of 1847, Chopin credited Molin with saving his life.

Jane Stirling, a student and benefactor for whom Chopin named two compositions, was a strong advocate for homeopathy, and she was influential in securing homeopathic medical care for Chopin when he traveled. Stirling wanted to take Chopin to Scotland and England for concerts and new students, but Chopin was resistant, due to fears about the wet weather that would exacerbate his condition. Against better judgment. Chopin left for Edinburgh, arriving during a heavy fog. At the train station was Dr. A. Lyszcynski, a Polish homeopath who Jane had thoughtfully provided to give Chopin homeopathic treatment during his visit. However, due to the weather and the dampness of his lodging, Chopin's health worsened.

Upon his return to Paris, he was saddened to discover that his homeopath, Dr. Molin, had died. He sought homeopathic treatment form two other homeopathic doctors, Dr. Roth and Dr. Leon Simon, but he wasn't satisfied with either of their treatments. Chopin then resorted to orthodox medical treatment, which also provided inadequate relief. He died at only 39 years of age. Chopin was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery, the same cemetery where Samuel Hahnemann was laid to rest.

Abraham Lincoln

The story of what happened to Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, is a classical story in medical history that exemplifies conventional medicine's attitude toward and actions against unconventional medical treatments and the physicians who provide them.

William Seward (1801-1872) was one of Lincoln's closest political advisors, and he was also an advocate for homeopathic medicine. On the night Lincoln was assassinated, Seward was stabbed in the multi-person assassination plot against the Union. (5) Thanks to the medical care provided by Joseph K. Barnes, MD, US Surgeon General, Seward survived. However, because Seward's personal physician was a homeopathic doctor and because the AMA had a policy that it was an ethical violation to consult with a homeopathic doctor or even provide care for a homeopathic patient, Dr. Barnes was denounced by the vice president of the AMA for providing medical care (Haller 2005:192). (6)

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) himself showed a special interest in homeopathic medicine. In 1854, before Lincoln was elected president, he was retained as a lawyer to prepare a state legislative proposal to charter homeopathic medical college in Chicago. Because Chicago was the home of the American Medical Association, which had been founded in 1847 in part to stop the growth of homeopathy, Lincoln's job was no simple effort. However, many of Chicago's most prominent citizens and politicians participated on the board of trustees of the proposed Hahnemann Medical College, including Chicago's mayor, two congressmen, an Illinois state representative, a Chicago city councilman, the co-founder of Northwestern University, the founder of Chicago Union Railroad, and several medical doctors who were homeopaths (Spiegel and Kavaler 2002). (7) Despite significant opposition, Lincoln was successful in obtaining a charter for the homeopathic college.

Today, the Pearson Museum at Southern Illinois University has an exhibit of a nineteenth-century doctor's office and drugstore; included in this exhibit is a homeopathic medicine kit from the Diller Drug Store of Springfield, Illinois. The exhibit notes that Abraham Lincoln was a frequent customer of the drugstore and a regular user of homeopathic medicines (Karst 1988: 11).

In addition to choosing Seward to be his Secretary of State, Lincoln had several leading advisors who were homeopathic Advocates. On November 1, 1861, Licoln appointed Major General george Brinton McClellan (1826-1885) to command the Union army during the Civil War. However, in late December, McClellan contracted typhoid fever, which left him unable to go to his office to conduct business (Rafuse 1997). During the first week of McClellan's illness, two homeopathic doctors arrived from New York to care for the ill general and his father-in-law, Chief of Staff Randolph B. Marcy, who was also ill. McClellan's decision to employ homeopathic doctors is particularly interesting considering the fact that the General came from a family of prominent conventional physicians. (8)

Despite this serious illness, General McClellan remained active, giving regular orders to his subordinates, arranging for troop movements and supply transports, meeting with the president on a weekly basis, issuing court martial orders, and even providing commendations to officers. By January 2, he seemed to be much better and shortly afterwards he had no noticeable physical limitations. McClellan lived another 23 years.

Despite the success of this homeopathic treatment on the military leader of the Union army, that very month January 1862, the Army Medical. Board rejected requests by homeopathic doctors to serve in military hospitals, arguing that to grant this request would invite applications from all types of quacks and charlatans claiming medical expertise.

Typhoid fever caused more deaths during the Civil War and the Spanish American War than the deaths caused by bullets (Wershub 1967:175). Despite the fact that homeopathy gained widespread popularity in the United States and Europe due to its success in treating various infectious disease epidemics of the mid-and late-1800s, including typhoid epidemics (Bradford 1900; Coulter 1973), the antagonism against homeopathy and homeopaths led to government regulations stipulating that graduates of homeopathic medical colleges could not receive a commission for military service.

In Connecticut, several "irregular" physicians offered their services to the governor, who accepted them, but the examining board of the Union army rejected them and instead accepted recruits from a hastily graduated class from Yale College. (9)

Although the Union army had strict restrictions against homeopatic physicians, the Confederate army did not. In fact, the physician to the wife of the Confederate army's General Robert E. Lee was a homeopathic doctor, Alfred Hughes, MD (Hughes 1904: 39). (10) At least in one incidence, General Lee himself was known to have taken homeopathic medicines (Mainwaring and Riley 2005).

Thankfully, the antagonism toward homeopaths was not as severe during World War 1; almost commissioned as medical were commissioned as medical officers. Even the American Red Cross authorized a homeopathic hospital unit (Dearborn 1923).

Lincoln was also known to appoint some homeopathic physicians to political positions. For instance, in 1863, he appointed Dr. J. G. Hunt, author of a book on homeopathy and surgery (Hill and Hunt 1855), to be consul to Nicarague (King 1905; 1: 177). Lincoln also signed a bill into law that gave the President the authority to make appointments to the Union army's medical department, including homeopaths (Haller 2005:187). However, orthodox physicians strongly asserted that they would not work with homeopaths in any way, thus creating new and more difficult problems in military medicine.

Although Lincoln surrounded himself with advocates for homeopathy, that didn't protect the medical science from his famous wit. He once called homeopathy "medicine of a shadow of a pigeon's wing."

On a more serious note, it should also be mentioned that the personal physician to Mary Lincoln (1818-1882) during the later part of her life was a homeopathic physician and surgeon from Chicago, Dr. Willis Danforth, (11) Mary Lincoln was known to have experienced serious bouts of depression after her husband was assassinated and two of her children died, one at age 11 (1862) and the other at 18 (1871). Mary Lincoln became the sole heir of the Lincoln estate, and her extravagant spending and unusual behavior later in life concerned her son Robert so much that in 1874, he sought to get her declared insane and sent to a mental asylum, The testimony of her homeopath, Danforth, confirmed her insanity because he noted that Mrs. Lincoln experienced "nervous derangement" and had delusions. She was committed to the asylum, but was free to move about the grounds and was released three months later. Recent research has uncovered strong evidence to suggest that Mary Lincoln also suffered from syphilis, which may help explain her crazed mental state (Hayden 2003: 120-132).

Charles F. Kettering

Charles ("Boss") Kettering (1876-1958) served as Vice-President of General Motors and was widely recognized as the greatest American inventor and engineer since Thomas Edison. He held more than 300 patents. His inventions included the all-electric starting ignition, ethyl gasoline, and Duco paint (trade name of a lacquer paint used on cars). He also started the Delco Company (which manufactures car batteries and was purchased by GM).

Early in his career, Kettering worked for National Cash Register, which maintained a clinic for employees that was staffed by homeopathic doctors. The company's newsletter often provided health tips on such topics as the necessity of physical fitness, the importance of thorough chewing of the food ("Fletcherism"), the usefulness of fasting, the value of hydrotherapy, and the benefits of health sanitariums like the Battle Creek Sanitarium created by Dr. J. H. Kellogg (the man who also created the famous cereal company). Kettering publicly acknowledged the health benefits he received due to the skills of Thomas Addison (T.A.) McCann, MD (1858-1943), his homeopathic physician from Dayton, Ohio (Enstam 1943:489).

T. A. McCann, MD, was a respected homeopathic physician who interacted considerably with conventional physicians. In fact, he was one of the few homeopathic doctors to work with the nationwide Federation of State Medical Examining Boards, serving as Vice-President in 1914-1915. Dr. McCann is often quoted today as a result of his report on the impressive successes of homeopathic treatment during the flu epidemic of 1918. In 1921, at the 77th annual convention of the American Institute of Homeopathy in Washington, D.C., he reported that 24,000 cases of flu treated in conventional medical hospitals had a mortality rate of 28.2% while 26,000 cases of flu treated in homeopathic hospitals had a mortality rate of 1.05% (McCann 1921; Dewey 1921). (12)

In 1914, Ohio State University (OSU) formally opened a College of Homeopathic Medicine. To help in these efforts, another homeopathic college (the Cleveland-Pulte Medical College) closed down, donated its medical equipment and library, and sent the proceeds of the sale of its property ($30,000) to the new homeopathic college. In the homeopathic school's first year, an impressive 39 students were enrolled. In 1915, Kettering and Edward A. Deeds (plant manager of National Cash Register, who had initially hired Kettering) gave $2,500 for research work and medical equipment. In 1916, Kettering gave $8,000 more, and in 1920, he donated $7,000 worth of radium for the school's X-ray machine.

Because the governor of Ohio at the time was James Cox, a strong advocate for homeopathy, and one of the governor's appointments to the university's board of trustees was Judge Benjamin McCann, the brother of Kettering's homeopath, the homeopathic college had important political support. This strength was further augmented by the employment of W. B. Hinsdale, dean of the University of Michigan Homeopathic School. (13)

However, the AMA could not stand for the development of a college of homeopathic medicine at a public university. N. P. Colwell, secretary of the AMA's Council on Medical Education, went on the offensive. He sharply criticized the president of OSU and arranged for strongly worded attacks against OSU in JAMA, and later, he even threatened to downgrade the accreditation status of OSU. Because Colwell's Council on Medical Education had become the national accrediting agency for medical schools, these threats were significant and made even worse by Colwell's close relationship with the Carnegie Foundation and its president, Henry S. Pritchett. According to the minutes of OSU's board of trustees, Pritchett made scurrilous attacks upon the motives of OSU's president and trustees (Roberts 1986).

In 1920, Kettering made a $1 million contribution to OSU with a stipulation that it be used to create a homeopathic research laboratory (Mendenhall Papers 1920; Hertzog 1949: 1193; Ohio State University 1922: 440). This action enraged the AMA and the Carnegie Foundation, thrusting them into further proactive efforts to stop this homeopathic college. When Governor Cox left office in 1920 to run as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, the homeopaths lost some of their political influence.

In 1922, the board of trustees voted to close down the homeopathic college. OSU was forced to return Kettering's donation as well as other donations that were specifically made to and for the homeopathic college, but OSU actually kept the largest and most valuable possession of the homeopathic community, the Homeopathic Hospital and all of its modern equipment, for its own College of Medicine (Ohio State University 1923:441). Kettering never trusted OSU after that. Even though he served on the board of trustees of OSU, he never again gave money to the school.

Dr. John Renner (1890-1989), a homeopathic doctor from Chicago who later retired to southern California, reported that Kettering had also planned to give another $1 million to homeopathy, but the infighting among homeopathic professionals led him instead to work to establish what later became the famed Sloan-Kettering Institute (14) (Suits 1985: 123). Sadly, the "Boss" is probably turning in his grave, knowing how his institute has turned away from homeopathy and from real healing.

Kettering's philosophy was summarized in the question he asked and answered of an interviewer: "Do you know what an incurable disease is? It's one the doctors don't know anything about. The disease has no objection to being cured at all" (McDowell 1983). Another reporter asked him about his conquests of the secrets of nature, to which Kettering responded:

  Hah, it's not the conquest of nature, it's the conquest of our own
  ignorance. And as for secrets, there is only one secret of nature I
  want to pry into. Why is the human skull as dense as it is? Nowadays
  we can send a message around the world in one-seventh of a second,
  but it take years to drive an idea through a quarter-inch of human
  skull (Young 1961: 193-194).

This doggedness and irreverence led Kettering to continually question conventional medical thinking and to have what the New York Times called "a long and expensive flirtation with research into homeopathy"(McDowell 1983).

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) studied homeopathic medicine with Dr. Diwan Jai Chand (1887-1961), a highly respected Indian homeopath whose two sons and grandson are also leaders of Indian homeopathy. Mother Teresa told others that she would not do a "physician's prescribing" (that is, she would not treat people with chronic or potentially fatal illnesses), but instead would use homeopathy in many first-aid situations.

According to a report from a conventional physician who worked closely with Mother Teresa from 1945 through at least 1988, the Mother "believes that homeopathic treatment is indispensable for the poor and distressed people of India in particular, [and] all other countries of the world in general, for its easy approach, effectiveness, and low cost" (Gomes 1988). Mother Teresa's mission opened a charitable homeopathic dispensary in Calcutta in 1950, and it has been reported that the Mother prescribed homeopathic medicines herself and assisted homeopathic physicians.

Notes

(1.) One randomized, double-blind study published in a major AMA medical journal showed that a homeopathic formula product (called Vertigoheel or Cocculus compositum) was as effective as a leading conventional drug in the treatment of vertigo (dizziness) (Weiser 1998). Vertigoheel is a prescription drug in the United States marketed for the treatment of vertigo, while Cocculus compositum is considered an over-the-counter drug that does not require a doctor's prescription because it is marketed for motion sickness, which is, according to the FDA, a less serious medical condition. These products have identical ingredients.

(2.) Holmes wrote Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions just six years after he graduated medical school. Even though his book was full of misinformation about homeopathy, Holmes had a certain brilliance and respectability such that this book was taken seriously by people antagonistic to homeopathy, For a more detailed story about Dr. Holmes, see Chapter 2. "Why Homeopathy Is Hated and Vilified."

(3.) The fact that Dr. Holmes chose to prescribe medicated cigarettes for living's asthma and cough is but one more example of bad medicine, and yet he and other orthodox physicians had the nerve to attack homeopathy as quackery.

(4.) For further information about James Compton-Burnett, see the story in Chapter 4, "Literary Greats," of his famous daughter, Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett.

(5.) A correspondent for the Courier Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) reported that the man who attacked Seward was given entrance into his home by pretending to have a homeopathic medicine for Seward from his homeopath, Dr. T. Verdi. This reporter also stated something that this author has not yet fully confirmed: "It is not generally known that Lincoln and his entire Cabinet were homoeopathists." (Other Days, 1887). This reporter also listed Jefferson Davis as a known advocate for homeopathy, though this fact is not yet verified.

(6.) William H. Mussey, vice president of the AMA, sought to censure Surgeon General Barnes, but the AMA's convention delegates did not take his advice.

(7.) Trustees of the college included Thomas Hoyne, Joseph B. Doggett, John H. Dunham, Norman B, Judd, George A. Gibbs, Orrington Lunt, William H. Brown, George E. Shipman, MD, and David S. Smith, MD.

(8.) McCellan's father was a prominent surgeon, author, and educator, and his uncle and older brother were highly respected members of the regular medical profession. McClellan's use of homeopathic treatments can be attributed to his wife, Ellen Marcy McClellan. One of the doctors who treated the general was her uncle, Erastus E. Marcy, who was founder and editor of the prestigious North American Homeopathic Journal and had been one of homeopathy's leading advocates during the 1840s and 1850s.

(9.) Some appointments of homeopathic physicians and surgeons were made surreptitiously, as in the case of G. S. Walker (1820-?). He graduated from an allopathic medical school, Jefferson Medical College, in 1852, and immediately moved to St, Louis. In 1860, he formally declared his interest in homeopathic medicine and was summarily kicked out of his local medical society for professional heresy. During the Civil War, he initially entered the Union army as surgeon of volunteers and later was appointed brigade surgeon under General Sherman (King, 1905, 11,388-389).

(10.) In addition to Dr. Alfred Hughes working as a homeopathic doctor in the Confederate army, Samuel Hunt, MD, of Georgia, also practiced openly as a homeopath. The story of Hughes, however, is a very interesting one because he practiced in Richmond, Virginia, where many leading Union officers were his patients, including General Peter Michie, the federal quartermaster general who was in charge of all the supplies for the army.

(11.) Willis Danforth, MD, (1826-1891) received his medical training in conventional medicine, though after being cured of sciatica by a homeopath, he began studying and practicing homeopathy. He became a professor of surgery at Hahnemann Medical College in Chicago.

(12.) Dr. McCann's statistics have been frequently misquoted. One modern-day popular book on the flu epidemic of 1918 (Barry, 2004) erroneously criticized the "absurd" statements from homeopaths because he asserted that 28.2% of people with the flu could not have died from it or there would have been millions of deaths in the US alone (and there weren't). McCann was specific in his statistics, and he clearly stated that he was comparing the death rates in homeopathic hospitals to those in conventional hospitals. Sadly, as has been historically repeated by critics of homeopathy, they tend to report misinformation to try to substantiate their case against homeopathy.

(13.) W. B. Hinsdale's son, Albert E. Hinsdale, was also a homeopathic doctor, and he became professor of materia medica at OSU. One of Albert's scientific studies was on the action of Kali bichromicum (potassium dichromate), a very important homeopathic medicine that was recently found to be extraordinarily effective in the treatment of patients suffering from chronic bronchitis or emphysema. Called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), this is the number-four reason that people die in the US. This study was conducted at the University of Vienna hospital and was published in the highly respected medical journal, Chest (Frass, et al.2005).

(14.) In homeopathy, as in any medical specialty, there are varied opinions on how to best treat patients. Some significant infighting in homeopathy occurred between those homeopaths who use high-potency doses (diluted 1:10 or 1:100, 30 or more times) and those who used low-potency doses (usually 3X to 30X). There were also conflicting opinions on how to best conduct research. Some homeopaths wanted to emulate conventional medical care and test one drug against a specific disease, while other homeopaths insisted that homeopathy required more individualized prescriptions. One of the more significant conflicts arose from those homeopaths who believed that no conventional drugs should be used at all, and those who were eclectic and used homeopathic, herbal, and conventional medications. Kettering's homeopath, T. A. McCann, MD, was a classical homeopath who used high potencies and insisted upon individualizing their application to the totality of the patient, not just the disease.

Excerpted from The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy by Dana Ullman, MPH (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2007)

by Dana Ullman, MPH