La plus ca change

[Dale Moss]

Lest we forget how long the allopathic community has been intractable in its attitude toward homeopathy, the following may be of interest:
"When reviewing our brief study of the relationship between allopathy and homeopathy in the countries selected to be compared with the Russian Empire, one may note that, in essence, the forms and methods adopted by the regular profession in its struggle against homeopaths and their "heresy" were similar in all countries. The homeopathic theory was labeled as "absurd", "denial of science", "propaganda of ignorance". Nevertheless, the appeals of homeopaths offering to prove the efficiency of homeopathy by experiment and not on the ground of theoretical speculations, steadily remained unanswered.

Homeopaths were expelled from societies common with allopaths, marginalized and blackmailed in the press as "quacks", "wizards", and "betrayers of science". In order to prevent the further spread of homeopathy through personal contacts, enabling a comparison of different methods of treatment, British and American regulars prohibited consultations with homeopaths; although in Russia this ban did not exist officially, the anxiety before a moral condemnation of "brethren" in the atmosphere of anti-homeopathic hysteria, was no less powerful than a direct ban.

In fact, the struggle with homeopaths has been nothing else but a struggle for the market of medical services. In the countries where the medical market was overcrowded with manpower (Britain and the USA) the resistance to homeopathy was especially irreconcilable, as homeopaths not only competed with allopaths, but also attracted the most solvent public. In the USA this attitude changed at the beginning of the 20th century for by allopaths (William Osler in first) initiated "reconciliation" within framework of "scientific", i.e. allopathic, medicine."

This is part of a chapter summary from Alexander Kotok's PhD thesis, "The History of Homeopathy in the Russian Empire." The entire chapter -- indeed, the entire thesis -- is online at:

http://homeoint.org/books4/kotok/1940.htm#1A00

Peace, Dale