The Fall of Homeopathy II
From The History of Homeopathy we also learn that there were other reasons contributing to the decline of homeopathy after the turn of the century. One of them was that orthodox medicine was no longer perceived as savage as it was in the 1800s and as a result, did not turn off as many patients.
Orthodox physicians also incorporated many of the homeopathic medicines into their daily practice. Even though their approach in dosage varied greatly from the homeopaths, their use of many homeopathic medicines confused the lay-people, who were having a hard time distinguishing between orthodox from homeopathic doctors. (1)
And of course there is the money thing. Homeopathic medicine required, and still does, a lot of individual time with the patient, more time than orthodox physicians were willing to give to their patients. Economics is a bigger part of the practice of medicine in this country than generally admitted, the fact that a doctor can make more money practicing orthodox medicine was also a major contributor to the decline of homeopathy.
An interesting tidbit about John D. Rockefeller, who was a very staunch supporter of homeopathy, which could have changed the history of homeopathy, is that he intended to give major grants to homeopathic institutions. Unfortunately, his financial adviser, Frederick Gates, did not follow his instructions. Gates, who was totally enamored with orthodox medicine never complied with Rockefeller’s orders. (2) This loss of funding, somewhere between $300 and $400 million in the early 1900s, was cataclysmic to homeopathy. Most of the money went to mainstream medical facilities. (3)
Finally, enter the drug companies. Their opposition to homeopathy greatly provided support to the endeavor of extinguishing homeopathy. The drug companies, which published medical journals, used these journals against homeopathy in favor of orthodox medicine. The evidence for this statement was in an 1906 article in the Journal of American Medical Association, which conceded that “the medical press is profoundly under the influence of the proprietary interests (read: drug companies). (4)
The Fall of Homeopathy III will cover some friction between homeopaths themselves, contributing to the decline of homeopathy.
Beste Gesundheit,
Werner
1. Coulter H. (1982) Divided Legacy vol. 3. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. p.371
2. Brown R. (1979) Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 109-111
3. Ibid.
4. Salisbury J. The Subordination of Medical Journals to Proprietary Interests. Journal of the American Medical Association. 46 (1906): 1337-38