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Bulletin of the History of Medicine 77.2 (2003) 479-480



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Martin Dinges, ed. Patients in the History of Homoeopathy. Network Series, no. 5. Sheffield, U.K.: European Association for the History of Medicine and Health, 2002. xiii + 434 pp. £52.10 (U.S.A.), £39.95 (U.K.), £43.33 (Europe), £47.82 (elsewhere) (0-9536522-4-6).

These articles edited by Martin Dinges originated at the 1999 conference of the International Network for the History of Homoeopathy sponsored by the Medical History Institute of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart, Germany. With minor exceptions, all the papers were presented at the conference and were later revised.

The collection is organized around four themes: historical foundations, the supply side of the medical market, patients' choices, and lobbying activities. Around the theme of historical foundations, the authors address such subjects as Hahnemann's modern approach to fees; the "myths" behind Hahnemann's departure from Leipzig in 1821; the doctor-patient relationship revealed in Hahnemann's patient correspondence; male patients of Hahnemann; and children as patients. The medical market includes studies of class, status, and gender; pre-World War patients in Russia; homeopathic folk healing in Iceland; Danish homeopathy; and French homeopath Léon Vannier's patients in the 1930s. The third theme, patients' choices, focuses on the popularity of lay homeopaths in the Netherlands; the patients of Belgian homeopath Gustave van den Berghe; relations between homeopathic lay societies and professional homeopaths; empirical studies of homeopathic patients in general practices and in health insurance schemes; and a sociological overview of physician-patient literature. The final section discusses lobbying by lay homeopaths in Great Britain and the United States.

The book is filled with interesting information, most of it new and much of it pathbreaking. Responding to Michel Foucault's and Roy Porter's challenge to rediscover the patient's perspective in medicine, Dinges has brought together a careful selection of articles that are both cross-cultural in perspective and venturesome in their challenge to prevailing interpretations of homeopathy. The book opens new windows to understanding patient choices by social standing, class, and gender. It also shows a much stronger similarity between regular medicine and homeopathy than previously claimed. In addition, the reader is introduced to the practice of letter consultation, and to patient diaries that provide unique and detailed accounts of Hahnemann's physician-patient relationship. The authors also offer perceptive deductions about the dissemination of medical information; explain patient attention to the humors and the subtle influence of animal magnetism in early homeopathy; and recount Hahnemann's insistence that he be paid in advance of treatment and that his more-educated patients be thoroughly familiar with his Organon. Of particular interest is the manner in which children were perceived, described, and treated in homeopathic practice—an area ripe for further research.

Among the articles, several are exceptional. Phillip A. Nicholls's study of the class, status, and gender of homeopathic patients in nineteenth-century Britain explains the social cachet of homeopathy's connections with England's rich and [End Page 479] fashionable, and its transference to America's wealthy urban elites. Homeopathy's aristocratic connections brought it remunerative benefits, political protection from harsh legislation, and a robust market among women for its domestic texts and medicine kits. Olivier Faure's study of Vannier's patients in the 1930s reveals the dynamic nature of illness and treatment in patient correspondence, and suggests the abandonment of many past social constructions and interpretations. Osamu Hattori analyzes the tensions between the homeopathic lay movement in Germany and homeopathic doctors, providing an interesting view of laypeople in their roles as lobbyists, propagandists, and educators. The readings end with Bernard Leary's study of homeopathy in Great Britain, Naomi Rogers's overview of homeopathy and American politics from 1900 to 1940, and Anne Taylor Kirschmann's rich study of the American Foundation for Homeopathy and the work of feminist and field representative Mary Ware Dennett, who sought to strengthen patients' advocacy of homeopathy.

This is an excellent book that brings the reader closer to...

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