Interview with Francis Treuherz
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INTERACTION Interview with Francis Treuherz Francis has been in practice since 1984. He was Member of the Board of the Society of Homeopaths for over 20 years. He currently works in London NW2 and at the Letchworth Centre for Healthy Living which won the CAM 2003 prize for the best complementary and alternative health centre in the UK. He was in NHS practice from 1990 to 1993 at the Marylebone Health Centre – Dr Patrick Pietroni (1990-1993), Fitzrovia Medical Centre – the late Professor John Cohen and Dr Caroline Evans (1993-2003), (and Bounds Green Group Practice with Dr Alan Schamroth and partners from 1993-1999). Francis Treuherz was a regular teacher at homoeopathy schools Manchester, Helsinki, Stockholm and Prague. He has also lectured in Amsterdam, Chichester, Galway, Helsinki, London, Manchester, Prague, San Francisco, San José, Seattle, Stockholm, Westminster. He was editor of The Homeopath 1986-2003 and 2006-2010. Francis was a Board member and Hon Secretary of the Society of Homeopaths for some 20 years. In April 2017, he was again elected to the Board of the Society of Homeopaths. Francis has become a skilled homeopath who will devote as much personal attention to each distant patient as he does with those who visit his consulting room. He has been a Trustee of the British Homeopathic Association. Francis has been a contributor and developer of MacRepertory and other special computer software for homeopathy since 1987. Dr Isha Gupta (ED): How and when a rejected science’. I studied not multiple prescription. Please share did you first become acquainted only Hahnemann, and historical your views over it. What is your with homoeopathy? books by Bradford and others but advice for the novice homoeopaths? I studied Kent, I studied Steiner, FT: I would refer you to another Dr Francis Treuherz (FT): My father and I began to grapple with Bach. I publication, of a debate in the old was in the leather industry so as a became so immersed in reading and Boardroom of the Royal London child I was given many new shoes. I slipped in to the lectures at a new Homoeopathic Hospital in London. In those days an X-ray machine homoeopathy school in London. The motion of the debate was ‘The called a fluoroscope was used to I quit PhD and instead studied to single remedy is the Medicine of measure children’s feet. The result become a homoeopath. was psoriasis. Starting with my Experience’ based on Hahnemann’s toenails and as a teenager I had over ED: There are several new methods essay of that name of 1805. The 50% body coverage with psoriasis. of homoeopathic practice created motion was overwhelmingly As a young man I had infectious after Hahnemann, including carried. The text is on my website hepatitis from poor quality water in the Negev desert and was never well. My dentist declared that I should go and see his brother who was a homoeopath. I did and not only did my energy return but my psoriasis was 80% improved in 2 months and that was not even the reason for my consultation. My interest aroused and I started to read books. I remember my first book, an original 1927 Boericke and someone thought I was reading a Bible on the train. At last a subject that interested me, as I was a social science academic with an MA. I registered for a sociology PhD to work on the ‘social construction of homoeopathy as July 2019 | The Homoeopathic Heritage | 39 INTERACTION https://www.homeopathyhelpline. ED: You are often called the ED: What are the toughest cases com/articles-resources/ (as are the Encyclopedia or Library of you healed with homoeopathy texts of the other references to my Homoeopathy ‘What is yours say according to you? own work in this interview). The on it’? I think I have been the toughest late Dr Peter Fisher chaired the FT: debate. FT: My wife called me the case. I wrote a paper on Extreme ‘Homeopathic FT Index’. In 1996, Homoeopathy which explains my I prescribe one remedy at a time, together with a colleague David answer to this question. although in acute cases this might be Needleman who had the idea, we ED: How has been your experience frequent. I often prescribe a remedy started ‘The Homeopathic Helpline’ giving lectures at various colleges. in water to be diluted and succussed a premium rate UK phone service daily for a week. I suggest that with a homoeopath on the line FT: I can only say that preparing novice homeopaths from the UK from 9 am to midnight, 7 days a and delivering lectures expands the arrange for observation placements week. So I have done around 2 days mind. with experienced colleagues, and a week for over 23 years of acute attend courses or internships in prescribing, as a locum service, ED: How has been your experience Kolkata, such as those arranged primary care, epidemic care, and as being associated with numerous by Dr Subrata Banerjea. There are a referral service. It keeps my brain homoeopathic stalwarts across the many ways of being right. active and is a useful service as we world? ED: Which book has influenced you still receive many calls. FT: I have travelled a great deal but the most and why? ED: What are the scope and slowed down now. I recall meeting limitations of homoeopathy in the the late Dr SP Dey and Dr S Dubey FT: The Dictionary of Practical Materia in Calcutta and learning from them. Medica by John Henry Clarke, 2nd treatment of the ailments of the modern world? Then I met Dr Rajan Sankaran in and subsequent editions (1925). Bombay in 1986 and had the idea It is very thorough, displaying FT: Limitations? They have to some of inviting him to our UK Society the experience of most remedies extent been overcome. There are of Homoeopaths conference which known at that time and including human limits of insight, intuition was his first voyage outside India for example, much unpublished and memory, which might be and became the start of a new material by James Compton handicaps when interviewing a career as an international teacher. Burnett. I was chagrined to learn patient and considering a choice I studied with George Vithoulkas later on, that Clarke was an active of medication. I was an early and Dr Vassilis Ghegas in Greece anti-Semite. adopter of Mac repertory computer and learned much from them. ED: Tell us something about your software in 1987. The program One voyage to San Francisco journey from a graduate to a has developed and greatly assists changed my life when I arrived renowned homoeopath? in access to the huge literature with whooping cough to teach a of our field. The creator of this seminar, and Dr Roger Morrison FT: Having an MA in Social and software, the late David Warkentin, prescribed a remedy in a 50M Public administration, and 11 years’ became a great friend. I still miss potency which healed me in deeper experience as a university teacher him. ways than just the cough. I shared meant that I had some skills to share my love of our literature with the There are limitations in many in my new profession. I became late Julian Winston and miss his countries of legal access to editor of the journal of the Society cheerful humour. I am delighted homoeopathy due to the hegemony of Homeopaths: The Homeopath, to count the Israeli homoeopath of the allopathic school and their for 10 years. I became an elected Jeremy Sherr, now in Tanzania, as a powerful pharmaceutical industry. Board member of the Society and friend from college days. Company Secretary. I wrote articles, As an extra layer there are poisons taught at homeopathy schools, and like Glyphosate pesticides which In common with all colleagues, I gave conference presentations. I deeply affect human health through shall never recover from the shock have always had a busy practice, contamination of food. But the of learning of the death of Dr including from 1990 to 2003 when I scope is without boundaries as new Peter Fisher in a cycling accident worked in the UK National Health patients turn up for help. Every in London last summer. Through Service. patient is an adventure. his friendship I became a member 40 | The Homoeopathic Heritage | July 2019 INTERACTION of the Editorial Advisory Board of that meant. The home smelled of Not quite, as after the seminar I was the journal Homoeopathy, and have fish, as it was a Friday, which they contacted by a GP who had been given a few papers at Faculty of had eaten for lunch*. I met the man present and I was invited to join Homoeopathy conferences, the and asked him how he enjoyed his his NHS practice where I stayed for earliest in 1984, and the most recent lunch, he informed me that he had 10 happy years until his untimely in 2018. eaten chicken. I decided I could not death. I had never considered interview him and asked to see a Hyoscyamus for Alzheimer’s before ED: What do you feel is the most care assistant. or since, having prescribed for gratifying for you as a professional the patient and not for the disease – medical practice, teaching, [*In older English culture it was a name. But it worked. writing or research? Or; what has tradition to eat fish on Fridays.] been/will be your most gratifying With kind acknowledgements: I asked her what was happening. achievement as a homoeopath? previously published in the Irish He was getting fresh with only Homeopathic Times, 21:1, Dublin FT: All these activities have been one lady and sometimes had to 2019.