Dr. Mel Draper is an historian of medicine who specializes in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of complementary and alternative medicine. Mel has a particular interest in the history of homeopathy and homeopathic hospitals, and has published articles on a broad range of subjects, including women and homeopathy, eighteenth century spa culture, and homeopathy in the mission field. He is a consultant for the Hahnemann House Trust and steward for Sue Young’s Biographies.
A.S. What led to your interest in the history of complementary and alternative medicine?
M.D. I’ve always had an interest in the unconventional, the unorthodox, the heterodox. I also have an unquenchable need to understand how, and why, the world functions as it does, and so it was probably inevitable that I would become a scholar.
It was apparent to me from a young age that history was the foundational discipline upon which all others rested, so that was the path I took. I moved to the United States, completed a Masters degree at the University of Chicago, then went out to the University of California, Davis, to do my Ph.D.
However, I soon realized my original project wasn’t going to be tenable. At the suggestion of my advisor, Allison Coudert, a brilliant historian of religions, and a former student of the great Frances Yates at the Warburg Institute, I took a research trip to London to explore a range of medical archives and find a new project.
Initially, I considered doing a history of medical herbalism. I think there’s still a need for such a history, but as I scoured the archives I became increasingly interested in the history of homeopathy. The more I delved into it, the more it struck me how fascinating this history was, and how it connected to so many of my existing scholarly interests.
I was particularly intrigued by the fact that five distinctly homeopathic hospitals were included in the new British National Health Service in 1948, and so that became the starting point for my career as an historian of homeopathy.
A.S. Yes, homeopathy hospitals in a major industrialized country! You are presently curator of Sue Young’s biographies for the Hahnemann House Trust. Have you come across any biographies of homeopaths that especially moved you?
M.D. There are so many stories, so many incredible and inspiring lives, that it is difficult to narrow down a small selection. Of course, there are the big names in homeopathic history, figures such as Sir John Weir (1879 – 1971), Margery Blackie (1898 – 1981), James Tyler Kent (1849 – 1916), and more recent homeopaths such as Thomas Lackenby Maughan (1901 – 1976), Misha Norland (1943 – 1921) and Jerome Whitney (1934 – 2018), whose lives make for riveting reading.
But, there are so many obscure or unknown homeopaths whose lives deserve to be rescued from the shadows. One of these was Dr. Mary Jane Hall-Williams (1845 – 1932). She was the first medically-qualified female homeopathic physician to practice in the United Kingdom and faced all of the usual obstacles as a homeopath, and more as a woman.
The recurring theme, across all of the biographies, was the incredible selflessness, and self-sacrifice, of so many homeopaths. Some of them actually worked themselves to death in their healing endeavors, including two colleagues at the Manchester Homoeopathic Dispensary, Doctors Sarkes C. Davids (1818 – 1844) and Edward Phillips (1823 – 1875). Their lives were dedicated to healing to such an extent that they exhausted their own health.
I am also interested in the more esoterically-minded homeopaths, individuals such as Edward Berridge (1844 – 1920), who was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and George Wyld (1821 – 1906), a Theosophist and Swedenborgian.
Some of my scholarly work has looked at the new religious movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries, so it was especially interesting to learn that there were some homeopaths who were actively involved in esoteric communities during that period.
More recently, I was introduced to the story of South African homeopath Elvia Bury (1928 – 2022) by her student, Rebecca Sturgeon. Elvia learned homeopathy from both medical and professional tutors in Dr. Donald Foubister (1902 – 1988) and Malcolm Rae (1913 – 1979).
Her biography really is the stuff that movies are made from, although I think the same could be said of pretty much every homeopath. I do urge your readers to take some time and read through Sue’s Histories and discover these remarkable figures who came before, and on whose shoulders homeopathy today rests.
A.S. For readers who may not be familiar with the Hahnemann House Trust, what is it, how was it established, what is its mission?
M.D. Hahnemann House Trust is a UK charity. It was founded in 1920, in memory of Peter Stuart, the so-called “Ditton Doctor,” by his sons Orsini and Mazzini Stuart. Peter Stuart was a Liverpool businessman, political reformer, and a lay homeopath. He was a friend of Dr. John Epps, who taught Stuart homeopathy.
Stuart began treating animals homeopathically, then his family, and very soon local people. He never charged for treatment, or the remedies he used, and it was estimated he treated more than a quarter of a million patients during his more than 40 years as a homeopath.
Stuart also blockembled a large collection of homeopathic artifacts, including many items owned by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, that Stuart acquired after the death of Melanie Hahnemann. These priceless homeopathic relics were donated by Stuart’s sons, along with the deed to Hahnemann House in Powis Place, London, behind the London Homeopathic Hospital, to serve as a Hahnemann Museum.
The Deed of Trust for Hahnemann House was established in December 1920, and subsequently revised by the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales in 1999, and again on 16th April 2016. The objects of the Trust remain to serve as a public museum for the housing and exhibition of relics formerly belonging to Hahnemann and any of his disciples, as a public library for the housing and reading of the publications of Hahnemann and his immediate disciples, and to provide the public with information as to where reliable homeopathic medicines may be obtained.
Another important function was approved and established in October 1967, for the advancement of the teaching and practice of homeopathy and research in matters relating to homeopathy. Sadly, Hahnemann House itself had to be sold off in the 1990s, and the Museum collection was placed in storage.
It was a difficult time, and one that only really began to be resolved when the then CEO of Homeopathy UK (formerly the British Homeopathic Society) Cristal Skaling-Klopstock initiated a major project to digitize the collection.
As a stopgap until new permanent premises were found for the Museum, a new website was created to serve as an online gallery for public viewing and engagement with the incredible Hahnemann artifacts that had been in storage for many years.
Around the same time, Sue Young very kindly donated her database of homeopathic biographies, and a separate section on the new Hahnemann House Trust website was provided for Sue’s “Histories.” I was personally involved in the migration, editing and updating of Sue’s histories, and I am delighted to have been involved in fulfilling this aspect of the Trust’s objective to research and inform about the history of homeopathy.
A.S. Thank you for sharing your own story and for revealing the fascinating history of the Hahnemann House Trust. I’m glad Sue Young’s amazing biographies found a good home, and a good steward there.
