Journal of the American Institute valued by modern homeopaths. An overall question and a particular theme is whether a of Homeopathy: Vol. 77 No 4 medical practice with such a spiritual inheritance 1984. can claim to be a science - and whether the The Origins of Kent's Homeopathy spiritual aspect is essential for effective practice. by Francis Treuherz*, MA It is my intention to explore two main areas: the spiritual influences on homeopathy as evidenced Francis Treuherz is a research student in in the role of Swedenborg's writings in the ideas sociology, and a visiting lecturer in Social of certain prominent homeopaths, that is, an Science and Administration at the University of intellectual history; and the relevance of past or London, Goldsmith's College. This paper is part present spiritual connections for the current of a larger project on 'The Social Construction of practice and scientific status of homeopathy. a Rejected Science: Homeopathic Medicine'. (written in 1983) Although there are not sharply opposing 'camps' or 'schools', one 'spiritual' and the other 'scientific', there is certainly evidence of *Francis Treuherz MA RSHom FSHom controversy about the nature and significance of is once again editor of The Homeopath, the esoteric in homeopathy. (Journal of the Society of Homeopaths, editor 1986-1993). A former Honorary The discussion centres around lengthy difficult Secretary of the Society of Homeopaths quotations, sometimes in archaic language, and sometimes in technical terms. I consider them he was a visiting lecturer at the essential to the argument, and worth unravelling University of Westminster and many for an understanding of what may be a different other homeopathy schools and paradigm of medicine, and to extend our conferences in Amsterdam, Chichester, understanding of concepts of normal or marginal Dublin, Galway Helskinki, London, science. Manchester, Oxford, Perth, Portland, Case of Exostosis of Right Os Calcis cured by Prague, San Francisco, Seattle, Heclae Lava. Stockholm, … . He worked for 13 years Dr. Garth Wilkinson went once to Iceland for a in NHS primary care. He is now in holiday and observed that the animals which fed private practice in London and in the pastures where the finer ashes of Mount Hecla fell, suffered from immense maxillary and Letchworth. He has written many other exostoses. Being an adherent of the historical and clinical articles and scientific system of medicine founded for us by reviews, a book, and a research report. Samuel Hahnemann. He brought some Heclae He has a unique library of some 7500 Lava home with him, and it has already been volumes of homeopathic literature. successfully used to cure affections similar to those which it is capable of causing. 2 Exeter Road, London NW24SP. [email protected]. 05/06/07 Heclae Lava has been shown to consist of silica, alumina, calcium, and magnesia with some ferric (Presented at a meeting of the Society of oxide. We are, therefore, not astonished that it Homeopaths in England, September, 1983.) can cause and cure exostosis. Abstract Brother allopath, this is science in therapeutics; This is an attempt to show an aspect of the what have you to take its place? Give absorbents influence of spiritualism on homeopathy. The and paint the part with iodine? What guarantee mid eighteenth century spiritual scientific works can you give me that your absorbents will not of Swedenborg were translated by an English absorb a bit of the pancreas or some small glands physician, John James Garth Wilkinson, in the in lieu of the exostosis? Or are you also true to 1840's; he then became a homeopath. His your principle: contraria contrariis curantur? translations were distributed through Henry Then pray tell me what is the contrary of an James, Senior to the homeopathic and exostosis?1 Swedenborgian community of the USA. James Tyler Kent was a homeopath whose practice and This extract from the pen of James Compton scholarship were indelibly coloured with Burnett was part of a collection of fifty reasons Swedenborgianism, and whose ideas are - still (based on cases) produced to convince a doubting allopath, in perusing the erudite and between the Soul and the Body A preoccupation engaging works of Burnett, my attention was with spirituality and formative causation is caught by this example of Victorian scientific disclosed, also found in the related ideas of thoroughness. A physician on holiday in Steiner and Anthroposophy. Iceland2 observes a phenomenon, collects a sample, brings it to England and has the Through his friendship with James and Emerson, pharmacist Epps, Could, or Nelson run up a and the spread of his writings in the United potency, and a new remedy is created. Clark cites states, Wilkinson has been viewed as a a more detailed clinical picture in his Dictionary, transcendentalist, and there was pressure on him of how the remedy may be used, suitably to become a Fourierist. Wilkinson was a friend individualised, for bony growths and bad teeth, of Hugh Doherty, chief disciple of Charles in certain circumstances.3 Fourier, in England, also a Swedenborgian. Garth Wilkinson (1812-1899) was a prolific The writings of Charles Fourier which pre-date correspondent, writer, translator and homeopath, 1830 were much influenced by Jean Jacques and his acquaintance included Blake, Carlyle, Rousseau. The evils of civilisation and the Rosette, Browning, Tennyson, Dickens, inability of government to remedy them are Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Siddall, traced to inequality; but the emphasis has now Bright, and Henry James, Senior. He was a shifted from politics to economics. The social reluctant physician, following his father's wishes. compact is seen as guaranteeing the rich the He qualified in 1834, when the work of a general enjoyment of their wealth and impunity for their practitioner was more that of a pharmacist than crimes. Fourier's solution was based on new today. he had to recommend the copious psychological principles in which the passions consumption of physic, for it was from physic were more important than the reason. He saw that he derived profit, but he was described as human nature based on a principle of variety, and having a conscience, and a horror of to cater for this each man should take many jobs, promiscuous drugging.’4 not merely in his life but in each day. Fourier's new society was to be organised in Phalanges - In the 1830's, Wilkinson began to practice self-contained communities which were to medicine, and having at first few patients he had produce, on a principle of co-property, all that time for other activities, notably translating they consumed. Alfred Cobban judged, the Swedenborg from the Latin. In addition to practical significance of these ideas ... slight. obviously spiritual works like The Doctrine of Fourier, like nearly all the socialists or utopians Charity and Arcana Coelestia, he translated of the period, was not as mad as he sounds, but Regnum Animalis (The Animal Kingdom), the he was planning for a pre-industrial world",9 He greatest and noblest work on Human Physiology influenced Wilkinson's choice and direction of which has ever appeared in the world, as involvement and writing on social issues, and Wilkinson described it in a letter to his fiancée.5 appealed to some of the American The work took four years to translate, from 1839 Swedenborgians. In America Fourierism became to 1843. He wrote a biography of Swedenborg an idealistic, individualistic and also spiritual published in 1849 (reissued in 1886). His work movement, practised on the eastern seaboard and came to the attention of Henry James, Sr., the Brook Farm, a community of which James' paper editor of a Fourierist newspaper, The Harbinger The Harbinger was the quasi-official journal. of New York, a polished writer on theological Wilkinson found Fourier the first worthy and metaphysical subjects, father of William historian of the Animal man, and it is possible James and Henry James. The two became that Fourier's ideas led to his polemical writings intimate friends and regular, copious and against undue state interference with the affectionate correspondents.6 It was through individual,’10 including compulsory James that Wilkinson became acquainted with vaccination11 and state reception of medical homeopathy. "You more than any other man led qualifications12 and the registration of me into homeopathy," wrote Wilkinson.7 And it prostitutes.13 was through James that the numerous adherents of the New Church of Swedenborg in the United Among Wilkinson's discoveries were two new States became acquainted with the translation of nosodes, Glanderine and Farcine14 (also known Swedenborg by Wilkinson. He went on to as Hippozaeninum) and another two delightfully translate Oeconomia Regni Animalis (The idiosyncratic works on the treatment of insanity Economy of the Animal Kingdom), with an with spiritualism, and painting with both hands, analytical introduction separately published8 and also known as stereoscope in art, or bimanual among many other of Swedenborg's writings The pictures.15 In 1885 his services to homeopathy Final Cause of Creation and The Intercourse were recognised by his election to the presidency work, surely, swiftly and sweetly. If others And of the Congress. bigger things do the same, there is not any quarrel between us. But I do aver and maintain Wilkinson began to lecture on physiology up and my own position. Everyday's practice confirms down England in Mechanics' Institutes and the me in the thought, if the right remedy is given, like; the line of thought he pursued led to his The the quantity is a secondary affair: though also the Human Body and its Connection with Man,16 in quantity in that case by all the rules of causes, 1851. may be smaller than in the other case-of inexacter skill.20 During these years, from the time that Quin introduced homeopathy to England in 1837, and Ralph Waldo Emerson characterised Wilkinson's when James drew it to his attention, Wilkinson style as rhetoric like the armoury of the underwent a gradual conversion - the word invincible knights of old,’21 Another biographer conversion with its connotations of religion is calls it "a style of such generous dignity and used by his biographer.