Pathways of Homoeopathic Medicine: Complex Homoeopathy in its relationship to homoeopathy, naturopathy and conventional medicine

112 Pages·2011·2.33 MB·English

by  Dr. phil. Bettina Blessing (auth.)

Bettina Blessing
Pathways of Homoeopathic Medicine
Bettina Blessing
Pathways of
Homoeopathic Medicine
Complex Homoeopathy in its relationship to homoeo-
pathy, naturopathy and conventional medicine
With a Foreword by Robert Jütte
Translated from the German by Margot M. Saar
With 23 Figures
Dr. phil. Bettina Blessing
Institute for the History of Medicine
Robert Bosch Foundation
Straußweg 17
70184 Stuttgart
Germany
ISBN 978-3-642-14970-2 Springer Medizin Verlag Heidelberg
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v
Foreword
Interest in homoeopathy is undiminished. 72% of Germans prefer to be treated with homoeo-
pathic medicines (Marplan-Institute 1995). Two representative surveys show that homoeopathy
has become the most popular alternative healing method in Germany: one was conducted
by the pharmacy journal Apotheken Umschau in spring 2001, the other in spring 2003 by the
market research institute Gesellschaft für Konsumgüterforschung (GfK). A survey among general
practitioners and internists commissioned by the medical journal Ärztliche Allgemeine revealed
that 76.9% of these physicians prescribe homoeopathic medicines, including many complex
remedies, “very often, often or occasionally”. In Europe, interest in homoeopathy has also been
on the rise for many years now, although harmonisation in European pharmaceutical law still
seems a far cry.
Like orthodox medicine, homoeopathy encompasses various approaches, some of which
look back on a long tradition. Next to classical homoeopathy which is based on Hahnemann’s
teachings and only uses single remedies there is also complex homoeopathy. Complex remedies
are preparations containing several active ingredients that complement each other. They are
usually sold as drops or tablets and are suitable for self medication; physicians and alternative
practitioners appreciate them because they can reduce the often time-consuming examination
of the patient and simplify the complicated remedy selection typical in classical homoeopathy.
Similar to orthodox medicines, complex remedies are commonly based on a diagnosis and the
general symptom picture. This does not mean that complex homoeopathy goes against the
fundamentals of homoeopathy (especially the similarity principle) as has often been suggested,
even quite recently. Proponents of complex homoeopathy early on posed the question why in-
gredients with similar effects could not be combined if the clinical effect of each homoeopathic
agent was known from drug provings on the healthy person.
Considering the role played by the complex remedies of various manufacturers on the
complementary drug market it surprises that the historical roots of this homoeopathic approach
have remained largely unexplored. The history of medicine has tended to focus almost exclu-
sively on the main streams, i.e. Hahnemann’s classical homoeopathy and the scientific-critical
approach that emerged in the 19th century and flourished in the first half of the last century.
Dr Blessing’s study therefore breaks new ground on several accounts, one of which is its
investigation of the historically evolved relationship between homoeopathy and naturopathy.
Despite all the delimitation attempts on both sides there have been repeated rapprochements
in the past. One outstanding example is Emanuel Felke (1856–1926), who, though most famous
for inventing the “clay therapy”, throughout his career regarded homoeopathy as the backbone
of his healing system, the still very popular “Felke Cure”.
Spagyrics, although it constitutes a separate section of the medical market, still shares some
common ground with homoeopathy in general and with complex homoeopathy in particular.
They are linked by what is known as ‘electro-homoeopathy’. Little is known about the origin and
complex development of electro-homoeopathy. It was introduced by Cesare Mattei (1809–1896),
Albert Sauter (life dates not known) and Carl Friedrich Zimpel (1801–1878) among others. All
three of them developed spagyrics, a healing method that goes back to Paracelsus, and they
created, in strict observation of Hahnemann’s similarity principle, a new system which made
them pioneers of complex homoeopathy.
It is also little known that the founder of homoeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843),
to whom classical homoeopaths like to refer, experimented with so-called “double remedies”
encouraged by his pupil Karl Julius Aegidi (1794–1874) and his friend Clemens Maria Franz von
vi Foreword
Bönninghausen (1785–1864), only to reject them after all in favour of the uncompromised use of
single remedies. One of the most important advocates of double remedies was the homoeopath
Arthur Lutze (1813–1870), who was very much in demand as a practitioner in Coethen around
the middle of the 19th century. He published an unauthorised sixth edition of the Organon in
1865 and, without further explanation, reinstated the paragraph on double remedies that Hah-
nemann had decided to omit. In her study which draws on a number of sources, Dr Blessing
traces the most important contemporary views on the changing and mixing of homoeopathic
medicines and proves that the forerunners of today’s complex remedies had many supporters
at an early stage.
Reading today’s disputations about homoeopathy we are reminded of the controversy waged
in the columns of the leading medical journals of the mid-1920s which had been ignited by the
famous Berlin surgeon August Bier (1861–1949) remarking favourably on homoeopathy. Bier
had pleaded that critics of homoeopathy examine the controversial approach without prejudice
as he himself had done in his Berlin clinic. It was August Bier who saw in the experiments of
the Greifswald pharmacologist Hugo Schulz (1853–1932) a convincing scientific foundation for
the rule of similars. Since 1903 Bier had publicly supported the Arndt Schulz Rule which states
that “weak stimuli excite life processes, medium strong stimuli enhance them, strong stimuli
inhibit and the strongest terminate them.” This axiom is still quoted today to explain regulation
therapies (to which homoeopathy also belongs).
After World War II Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg (1905–1985) was among the physicians who
promoted a healing approach that arose from “holistic thinking”. His treatment system, known
as homotoxicology, was the attempt to bring about a synthesis of homoeopathy and scientific
medicine. Its historical roots are documented here for the first time. While studying in Berlin,
Reckeweg had attended the lectures of Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875–1951) and August
Bier. Yet, the main influence on the man who was to found the Heel Company was, without
doubt, August Bier.
At the time when August Bier stood up for homoeopathy, i.e. the mid-1920s, a group of
physicians came together who were convinced that it was necessary to merge the various thera-
peutic approaches into a “scientifically founded healing method that was developed into an art”.
Their motto was “ars una, species mille” (there is only one art, but a thousand approaches).
The movement’s mouthpiece or media platform was the journal Hippokrates, which had been
founded in 1929 and featured the programmatic subtitle: Zeitschrift für Einheitsbestrebungen der
Gegenwartsmedizin (journal for the unity of modern-day medicine). Its editor, Professor Georg
Honigmann MD (1863–1930), outlined the journal’s objectives in its first issue: “Medicine must
not develop in sole reliance on the ultimately accidental, inadequate, simultaneous or successive,
discoveries of the natural sciences, though it should by no means ignore their fertile influence.
It must be guided and governed by one unified concept in the development of which it can
come to understand the meaning of human disease symptoms.” He also calls for complementing
and improving the findings of a “mechanistic, generalising method with other considerations”.
Honigmann and his many fellow campaigners, among them a number of renowned physi-
cians, echoed what Bismarck’s personal physician Professor Ernst Schweninger (1850–1924)
in his 1906 book Der Arzt (The Physician) had expressed in rather a militant and exaggerated
manner: “Smash the gauge that the scholars with unseemly urgency want to impose upon you.
Establish your own pathology that addresses the sick person; hurl down the therapy templates
of science that shred the human being into small fractions and submit them to the experts for
treatment.”
vii
Foreword
Today’s health care system is viewed with similar reservations. For some years now it has
been the aim of the Dialogue Forum on Pluralism in Medicine to facilitate, through open dialogue,
the constructive discourse between representatives of orthodox and complementary medicines
in order to achieve the best possible patient care. The relationship between orthodox and
complementary medicines (the latter includes all alternative medical approaches) is still marked
by mutual distrust and delimitation tendencies. This applies also to the German health care
system. There is no systematic cooperation yet between the various medical schools of thought.
If anything, there is some kind of “asymmetric co-existence” where medical schools teach and
apply almost only orthodox medicine while the additional use of complementary medicine has
become quite common in wide areas of ambulant health care. The Dialogue Forum on Pluralism
in Medicine, founded in autumn 2000 with the support of the president of the German Medical
Association (Bundesärztekammer), Professor Dr Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, has therefore set itself the
task of pursuing a critical dialogue among the different medical orientations. Similar to August
Bier who spoke up for homoeopathy 80 years ago, there are again representatives of scientific
medicine who welcome research into complementary medicine and are open to a constructive
dialogue.
Dr Blessing’s historical study shows that homoeopathy was not just under attack from its
first beginnings, but that there have always been physicians who approached the controversial
healing method openly and without prejudice. That it was complex homoeopathy which helped
to build the bridge is one of many insights that this profound historical-scientific documentation
from the pen of a recognised expert in social and medical history conveys.
Stuttgart, Spring 2009
Prof. Robert Jütte PhD
ix
Content
1 The Development of Complex Homoeopathy from the 19th Century
to the End of the Weimar Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Controversy About the Double Remedy During Hahnemann’s Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Arthur Lutze’s Views on Drug Mixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Complex Remedies in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Central Homoeopathic Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
“What Attitude Should we Have Towards Complex Homoeopathy?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Single Remedy Homoeopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Complex Remedies as a Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Clinical Homoeopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Dissemination of Complex Homoeopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Felke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Madaus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Reckeweg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Zähres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Schwabe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Pascoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Excursus: Spagyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Electro-Homoeopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Mattei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Sauter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Zimpel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Krauss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Sonntag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2 The Connection Between Homoeopathy and Naturopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Naturopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Pathological Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Emanuel Felke and his Therapeutic Concept: Homoeopathy and Naturopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Felke’s Pathological Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Felke’s Healing Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Sitzbaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Light-, Air- and Sun Baths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Clay Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Nutrition and Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Hahnemann’s Dietetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Syntheses of the Healing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
x Content
3 Homoeopathy as Part of a “Holistic Medicine” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The “Crisis” of Orthodox Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
August Bier (1861–1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
August Bier’s Attitude Towards Homoeopathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Ferdinand Sauerbruch: “Taking up the Cudgels for August” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Conflicts of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
The Similarity Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
“Curative inflammations” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Stimulants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Drug Proving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Symptom Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Posology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
The Arndt-Schulz Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Potentisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Hahnemann’s Homoeopathy as a System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
August Bier and the “World’s Biggest Natural Healing Institute” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Establishing Homoeopathy at the University of Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg’s Pathology and Therapy Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Fever and Inflammation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Phases of Poisoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Homoeopathy and Homotoxicology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Injection Therapy with Homoeopathic Remedies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Nutrition and Sutoxins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Homoeopathy as the “Mother of Medicine” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
1
The Development of Complex
Homoeopathy from the 19th Century
to the End of the Weimar Republic
The Controversy About the Double Remedy ness to experiment with double remedies.3 Aegidi,
During Hahnemann’s Lifetime1 a medical doctor who had gained the position of
personal physician to Princess Louise of Prussia
Homoeopathy has developed in many different ways on Hahnemann’s recommendation, practised pri-
over the last 200 years. Next to what is known as “clas- vately in Düsseldorf in addition to his tasks as a
sical homoeopathy” another approach was already regimental physician.4 He often accompanied the
established in Samuel Hahnemann’s (1755–1843) princess on long journeys and in his absence his
lifetime. This method experimented with and used patients consulted the Cologne physician Johann
double remedies and, in doing so, went against Stoll (1769–1848).5 According to Aegidi, Stoll had
Hahnemann’s fundamental principle of single remedy the reputation of being a homoeopath although he
treatment. The homoeopathic double remedy can be not only – in Aegidi’s opinion – disregarded the simi-
said to have originated in 1831/32 which indicates larity principle; he also did not expect any medical
that the history of the homoeopathic drug mixtures advancement from individual drug provings or the
is almost as old as that of homoeopathy itself.2 pharmacopoeia.6 He nonetheless used potentised
Hahnemann’s correspondence with his colleagues homoeopathic medicines. He divided all remedies
shows his ambivalence with regard to the reliability of into two classes and chose one of each, in high dilu-
drug mixtures. In a letter he wrote in April 1833 he tion and combined in alcohol, for each given case of
still rejected Karl Julius Aegidi’s (1794–1874) eager- illness.7
3 Hahnemann’s letter to Aegidi of 28th April 1833. Printed in:
Haehl (1971), vol. 1, p. 393: “[…] but do cease to pay any atten-
tion to Dr Stoll’s mixtures; otherwise I might fear that you were
1 Since the beginning of the 1990s there has been a differentiation not yet convinced of the eternal necessity of treating patients
between “complex remedies” (naturally occurring compounds) with simple unmixed remedies. I have even seen shepherds and
and “combination remedies” (manmade mixtures). This dif- hangmen do some wonderful things now and then. Are we to
ferentiation is not relevant to the purpose of this historical chance to luck in the same way?”
documentation. Weingärtner (2007), p. 39 and id. (2006), p. 4. 4 For a biography on Karl Julius Aegidis cf. Vigoureux (2001).
2 1796 is usually considered to be the birth year of Hahnemann’s 5 The sources do not show what induced the Cologne physician
doctrine. In 1807 Hahnemann first used the term “homoeo- to use double remedies.
pathic” and from 1810 he used “homoeopathy”. Cf. Jütte (1996), 6 Aegidi (1838), p. 278.
p. 24. 7 The criteria for the two classes are not known.
B. Blessing, Pathways of Homoeopathic Medicine,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-14971-9_1, © Springer Medizin Verlag Heidelberg 2011