The Hospital Ward: Legitimizing Homœopathic Medicine Through the Establishment of Hospitals in !"Th-Century London and Madrid
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“Globulizing” the Hospital Ward: Legitimizing Homœopathic Medicine through the Establishment of Hospitals in !"th-Century London and Madrid Felix Stefan von Reiswitz Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD History of Medicine. UCL, Department of History Submitted November 2012 Declaration Declaration of Originality Declaration I, Felix Stefan von Reiswitz, declare that the work submitted is my own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. F. S. von Reiswitz London, November 2012 2 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, present and past, Dr. rer. nat. Helga Satzinger, Prof. Anne Hardy and Dr. Michael Neve for their tireless and patient guidance throughout this thesis’s long gestation. This thesis benefitted substantially from a “Marie Curie Fellowship for Early Stage Training” held at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville) and a completion grant from the Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung as well as from a travel grant from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. My thanks also go to all those who generously gave their valuable time and knowledge to comment, advise and guide through the different stages of this project, especially Prof. Martin Dinges, Dr. Andrew Wear, Prof. Manuel Herrero Sánchez and Mr. Félix Antón Cortés who opened many doors and guided me through the maze of both Spanish bureaucracy and nineteenth-century Madrid. I am deeply indebted to all those who facilitated my access to public and private collections. Mrs. Enid Segall; Ms. Sato Liu; Mr. Gerhard Bissels; Mr. Francis Treuherz; Dr. Jane Arnold; Prof. Rafael Huertas García-Alejo; The British Homœopathic Association and Faculty of Homœopathy; The staff at the Institut für Geschichte 3 Acknowledgements der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung; The Royal Archives; The London Metropolitan Archives and the Wellcome Library. I am grateful to colleagues and friends around the globe for all kinds of inspiration, support, assistance and encouragement through the years: Dr. Jane Seymour, Dr. Frederic Bülow, Dr. Erin Sullivan, Dr. Norberto Serpente, Dr. Tom Quick, Dr. Steve Ridge, Dr. Lisa O’Sullivan, Dr. Carole Reeves, Ms. Amaya Maruri, Mr. David Aranda, Ms Susanne Seltmann, Dr. María Gómez, Mr. Antonio Golmar, Mr. Alan Yabsley, Mr. José-Luis Pereira, Mr. Francisco Díaz and Mr. Sandro Jiménez. Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank my family, particularly my parents and Bobby Hanlon, for all their patience and support over these last years. 5 4 Abstract Abstract Abstract This thesis examines the background, establishment and early history of two homœopathic hospitals in different national settings: the London Homœopathic Hospital (founded 1849) and the Instituto Homeopático y Hospital de San José (founded 1878) in the Spanish capital Madrid. Both institutions are among the last survivors of their kind to this day and were chosen for their availability of sources that make it possible to fit this thesis into the existing historiography of hospitals, where “alternative” 19th Century medical institutions are seldom considered, as well as into that of homœopathy in general, wherein both hospitals and Spain have hitherto been paid only scant attention by historians of medicine. The first two chapters examine the two disparate attempts to establish a homœopathic hospital, against opposition and lacking active support from government authorities. The two timelines stretch from the founders’ first outlined plans to the opening of the first wards, the institutions’ organization and their progress up to the 1890s. Biographical details of the two principal characters behind these projects, Dr Frederick Quin and Dr José Nuñez Pernía respectively, help to understand their own conversion to and interest in the new and controversial practice that was homœopathy. 5 Abstract Figure A.1: “Post Tenebras Lux” (“after darkness, light”): Death is banished from the hospital by the new medicine of similars. A study of the two hospitals’ activities follows, using analysis of contemporary periodicals, surviving archival material and institutional statistical returns to understand the extent to which these hospitals were perceived as successful by their supporters, both in attracting and caring for patients. A picture also emerges about who the early patients and practitioners of these two institutions were, what pathologies were seen in the wards and how successful the practitioners understood the homœopathic treatment to be. Homœopathic hospitals also played a role beyond patient care, such as providing loci for the training of new practitioners or acting as major nodes within national and international homœopathic networks. The fourth chapter examines some of these extra-clinical functions and how far these hospitals buttressed the struggle for a solid basis of legitimacy for homœopathy within contemporary clinical medicine. 5 6 Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents Declaration of Originality .......................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ................................................................................... 3 Abstract .................................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents ....................................................................................... 7 Illustrative Material and Tables ................................................................. 11 Figures ......................................................................................... 11 Tables ......................................................................................... 15 Abbreviations .......................................................................................... 17 Introduction ............................................................................................ 19 i.1 Nomenclature and ‘Background’ Concepts of Homœopathic History ........................................................................................ 22 i.2 Historiography of British and Spanish Homœopathy .................... 26 i.3 Historiography of other Homœopathic Hospitals ......................... 30 i.4 Historiography of the London and Madrid Homœopathic Hospitals ..................................................................................... 34 i.5 ‘Professional’ and ‘Lay’ Homœopathy ........................................... 39 i.6 Charity and the Voluntary Hospital .............................................. 41 i.7 Medical Professionalization ......................................................... 42 i.8 Sources ........................................................................................ 45 i.9 Structure of the Thesis’s Chapters ................................................ 50 Chapter 1 The London Homœopathic Hospital: Precedents, Foundation and Early History, 1833–1898 ..................................... 54 1.1 London’s ‘Homœopathic Precedents’ before 1849 ......................... 54 1.1.1 Homœopathy’s circuitous route to Britain, 1833–1837 ........... 56 1.1.2 Curie’s Homœopathic Institutions in London, 1837–1853 ....... 62 7 Table of Contents 1.2 Frederick Quin, Founder of the London Homœopathic Hospital ....................................................................................... 69 1.2.1 Quin’s Early Biography and First Homœopathic Contact, 1799–1832 .......................................................................... 72 1.2.2 Quin’s Return to England, 1832–1843 ..................................... 84 1.3 The Foundation and Work of the London Homœopathic Hospital ....................................................................................... 88 1.3.1 The “British Homœopathic Society,” 1844–1849 .................... 88 1.3.2 The First London Homœopathic Hospital, 1849–1857 ............ 93 1.3.3 The New London Homœopathic Hospital, 1859–1876 .......... 106 Chapter 2 Instituto Homeopático y Hospital de San José: Precedents, Foundation and early History, 1829–1898 .................................... 132 2.1 Homœopathic Beginnings in Spain, 1829–1843 ............................ 133 2.2 José Nuñez Pernía, Founder of Madrid’s Instituto Homeopático y Hospital de San José ............................................ 142 2.2.1 Nuñez’s Early Biography and First Homœopathic Contact, 1805–1843 ........................................................... 142 2.2.2 Nuñez and the Spanish Doctors, 1843–1845 .......................... 146 2.3 The Long and Difficult Foundation of Nuñez’s Hospital, 1845– 1879 ........................................................................................... 149 2.3.1 The “Sociedad Hahnemanniana Matritense,” 1845–1847 ...... 150 2.3.2 Nuñez, the “Sociedad Hahnemanniana Matritense” and Madrid’s First Homœopathic Dispensary, 1850–1865 ........ 157 2.3.3 A Redoubling of Efforts: The Final Royal Decree, 1865– 1867 ................................................................................. 161 2.3.4 A Homœopathic Hospital by Private Initiative, 1867–1873 ... 162 2.3.5 The First Spanish Homœopathic Hospital, 1873–1879 .......... 166 2.3.6 Nuñez’s Difficult Legacy: the Instituto Homeopático y Hospital de San José after its Founder’s death, 1879– 1898 ................................................................................. 175 Chapter 3 Homœopathic Hospital Demographics: Staff, Volunteers