University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 From Thick to Thin: The Remaking of Homeopathy in France Michael Joiner University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Joiner, Michael, "From Thick to Thin: The Remaking of Homeopathy in France" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1792. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1792 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1792 For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Thick to Thin: The Remaking of Homeopathy in France Abstract Homeopathy is an alternative healing method originated by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in the 18th century. Since its advent, it has undergone many transformations, as a clinical method as well as a philosophy, as it has confronted the changing climates of scientific knowledge and politics. odaT y, it faces challenges to its existence from industry and “official” science and medicine and is riven with internal discord on matters of homeopathic ideology and orthodoxy. This dissertation seeks to illuminate the nature of these challenges by studying the homeopathic community in France, where homeopathic treatment is widely sought by patient-consumers and is partially reimbursed by the public health insurance system. The specific focus of this esearr ch is the loss of homeopathy’s “thickness,” which describes the method’s clinical particularities, which attend to the “whole” patient and which are being erased as the homeopathic remedy industry in France transforms homeopathy from a form of clinical expertise into a “thinned” consumer healthcare commodity. Through ethnographic interviews conducted over a period of 18 months with a range of stakeholders in the French homeopathic community, including industry actors, physicians, pharmacists, and academics, this dissertation explores how these stakeholders differentially articulate the method’s epistemological, ideological, and political identities, risks, and hopes for the future. The future of clinical homeopathy is increasingly determined by industry, to which the homeopathic community has affixed its hopes of survival. The research herein suggests that industry is ultimately not interested in preserving homeopathy’s “thick” clinical method; it is only interested in the “thin,” simplified, market-friendly version of homeopathy that sells product. The effect of industry’s remaking of homeopathy is that it obviates the role of the traditional homeopath. And to the extent that homeopaths rely on industry for financial support of their research and professional conferences, they are complicit in their own decline. Many homeopaths fear challenging industry because to do so would be to challenge the hand that feeds them. The ethnographic accounts in this dissertation provide a view on clinical homeopathy’s Faustian bargain with industry. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Anthropology First Advisor Adriana Petryna Keywords France, Homeopathy Subject Categories Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Cultural Anthropology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1792 FROM THICK TO THIN: THE REMAKING OF HOMEOPATHY IN FRANCE Michael Joiner A DISSERTATION in Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation ___________________________ Adriana Petryna, PhD Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in Anthropology Graduate Group Chairperson ___________________________ Clark L. Erickson, PhD Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Chair Dissertation Committee: Anne M. Lovell, PhD Senior Research Fellow Emeritus / Directrice de Recherche Emérite Inserm - Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale Cermes3 and Ecole Doctorale, Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales John Tresch, PhD Associate Professor, Graduate Chair Department of History and Sociology of Science University of Pennsylvania FROM THICK TO THIN: THE REMAKING OF HOMEOPATHY IN FRANCE COPYRIGHT 2015 Michael Joiner This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/ DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my mentor and friend, Adriana Petryna, whose unwavering support and intellectual guidance made this dissertation possible. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology, the University of Pennsylvania Critical Writing Program, and the Science, Technology & Society Program at the National Science Foundation for their generous financial support of this research. Special thanks are due my committee members. I am deeply grateful to Anne Lovell for her encouragement, her sage advice on navigating life in France, her invaluable commentary on my writing and thinking, and her shepherding of my co-tutelle at EHESS in Paris. I offer my sincerest thanks also to John Tresch for sharing his knowledge on theoretical directions and source materials and his wisdom on life as a dissertator. Hannah Voorhees provided critical feedback on many iterations of this dissertation and provided unceasing encouragement along the way. And Christa Cesario’s thoughtful check-ins helped me stay connected to the “outside world.” My heartfelt thanks to them both. Finally, I owe my biggest debt of gratitude to my advisor, Adriana Petryna, whose wise counsel kept my spirits up and my mind sharp. Thank you, Adriana, for the talks, the walks in Paris, and for taping a little vial of HomeoSys on the wall above your desk. iv ABSTRACT FROM THICK TO THIN: THE REMAKING OF HOMEOPATHY IN FRANCE Michael Joiner Adriana Petryna, PhD Homeopathy is an alternative healing method originated by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in the 18th century. Since its advent, it has undergone many transformations, as a clinical method as well as a philosophy, as it has confronted the changing climates of scientific knowledge and politics. Today, it faces challenges to its existence from industry and “official” science and medicine and is riven with internal discord on matters of homeopathic ideology and orthodoxy. This dissertation seeks to illuminate the nature of these challenges by studying the homeopathic community in France, where homeopathic treatment is widely sought by patient- consumers and is partially reimbursed by the public health insurance system. The specific focus of this research is the loss of homeopathy’s “thickness,” which describes the method’s clinical particularities, which attend to the “whole” patient and which are being erased as the homeopathic remedy industry in France transforms homeopathy from a form of clinical expertise into a “thinned” consumer healthcare commodity. Through ethnographic interviews conducted over a period of 18 months with a range of stakeholders in the French homeopathic community, including industry actors, physicians, pharmacists, and academics, this dissertation explores how these stakeholders differentially articulate the method’s epistemological, ideological, and political identities, risks, and hopes for the future. The future of clinical homeopathy is increasingly determined by industry, to which the homeopathic community has affixed its hopes of survival. The research herein suggests that industry is ultimately not interested in preserving homeopathy’s “thick” clinical method; it is only interested in the “thin,” simplified, market-friendly version of homeopathy that sells product. The effect of industry’s remaking of homeopathy is that it obviates the role of the traditional homeopath. And to the extent that homeopaths rely on v industry for financial support of their research and professional conferences, they are complicit in their own decline. Many homeopaths fear challenging industry because to do so would be to challenge the hand that feeds them. The ethnographic accounts in this dissertation provide a view on clinical homeopathy’s Faustian bargain with industry. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ....................................................................................................... III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... IV ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... V LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. IX PREFACE ............................................................................................................. X NOTE ON NAMES ............................................................................................ XIV CHAPTER 1 — INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 MEETING HOMEOPATHY IN THE FIELD ..................................................................... 7 WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY? ..................................................................................... 12 HAHNEMANN’S TWO FOUNDING PRINCIPLES ......................................................... 14 HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES ...................................................................................