Homeopathy and Hospitals in History

The Institut für Geschichte der Medizin (IGM) of the Robert Bosch Foundation played host to the 7th International Conference of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health's International Network for the History of Homeopathy (INHH) from the 4th to the 6th July 2007. The conference's theme was “Homeopathy and Hospitals in History”, addressing the curious fact that, despite homeopathy and “the clinic” emerging around the same time, the relationship between the two had so far not been seriously examined in any great detail. Proceedings were divided into four sections, “Europe I: North-West”, “Europe II: The Cradle of Homoeopathy”, “USA” and “Central and South America”.

In her inaugural lecture, “The last Frontier: Hospitals, Homeopathy and History”, Naomi Rogers (New Haven, USA) talked about the origins of the hospital as an institution and of the importance of the hospital for the flourishing of homeopathic practice, through its role in demonstrating and explaining homeopathy.

Following the introductory lecture, the first section on North-West Europe began from a Dutch perspective, with Hein De Lange de Klerk’s (Groningen, Netherlands) paper “Homeopathic hospitals in the Netherlands”.

Moving west across the English Channel, Felix S. von Reiswitz (London, United Kingdom) presented “A case study of the London Homœopathic Hospital”.

Flying north once more, Motzi Eklöf (Linköping, Sweden) presented an intriguing alternative to hospital history from a Swedish perspective, namely the history of “The Homeopathic Hospital that never was: Attempts in the Swedish Riksdag from 1835 to 1863 to obtain support from government authorities for the establishment of a homeopathic hospital, and the issue of theory versus empiricism in medicine”.

In the second European section, Martin Dinges (Stuttgart, Germany) presented a lecture on “Homeopathic hospitals in Germany in the international context”.

The second day began with Michael E. Dean’s (York, United Kingdom) lecture on “Evaluating homeopathy in the hospital: the first 100 years”.

The third section of the conference moved proceedings across the Atlantic to the United States of America. Beginning on the East coast, Nadav Davidovitch (Beer Sheva, Israel) presented “The Homeopathic University Hospital - Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital in Context”, an institution portrayed as uniquely forward-looking and situated in a location where homeopaths were exceptionally well integrated in the medical community.

Flying west once more, Melanie J. Grimes (Seattle, USA) provided an West-coast perspective through her “History of Homeopathy in hospitals in Washington State - from Gold Rush territory to Grace Hospital”.

Moving south from Washington State, Josef M. Schmidt (Munich, Germany) completed the North-American picture with his “History of the Homeopathic College and Hahnemann Hospital at San Francisco”, representing research conducted through the examination of hospital records, directories of medical practitioners, telephone directories and registers.

The fourth and final session turned to Central and South America, with Paulo Rosenbaum (Sao Paolo, Brazil) talking about the “Brazilian experiences in hospitals from the 19th to the 21st centuries”.

Fernando François Flores' (Mexico City, Mexico) paper on “The National Homeopathic Hospital in Mexico City” concluded the session, providing an insight into Mexican homeopathy.

Robert Jütte (Stuttgart, Germany) concluded the conference proceedings with his closing remarks on the “Specificities of the homeopathic hospital”. Despite the diversity a few general features can be singled out. The motives in founding homeopathic hospitals were of four kinds: 1) to gain public recognition by proving the efficacy of the new art of healing; 2) to ensure scientific progress in theory and practice; 3) to provide training for future homeopaths; 4) to offer patients better treatment; 5) to compete with allopaths and to gain prestige in the scientific community, 6) to prove that homeopathy is the cheaper and better treatment. There are also common denominators to be observed as far as the closing down of homeopathic hospitals is concerned: Among the general problems were, for example, the lack of funds, the internal strife, and lack of space. But also the trends of the time played a role, e.g. structural changes in the health system or progress in biomedicine. And there were, last but not least, intrinsic problems such as the failure to provide scientific evidence, and the lack of research. More research is needed on open questions such as everyday life in a homeopathic hospital or the specific treatment provided by these institutions.

For a more detailed conference report please go to: http://www.igm-bosch.de/f6.htm and click at “Rückblick”.