Homeopathy has a turbulent history in the US. In 1825, Hans Burch Gram came
from Danmark, where he was tough in homeopathy, to New York. Homeopathy became
a flourishing method because allopathy
or conventional medicine at that time was exactly
like Hahnemann
had been described.
In 1833 Constantine Hering came in the USA and became the driving force, he founded the
first national medical association, the AIH (American Institute of
Homeopathy). Apparently as reaction, in 1836 the AMA (Americal Medical
Association) was founded. Also other medical philosophies
"contaminated" homeopathy. But James Tyler Kent was for more than 30 years
a counteracting force and homeopathy flourished even more.
In 1930 Abraham Flexner, with no academic education, personally evaluated medical education, where he visited 157 schools in 8
months with "no fixed method of procedure" as he later
admitted,
with the result that many educational systems didn't meet his standards, only
1 of the 15 homeopathic schools remained. His words "universities
must at times give society, not what society wants, but what it needs"
were apparently based on what Flexner thought society needed. This seems to be
still the paternalistic "scientific" view of Western medical education.
On 25 June 1938 the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was signed by Roosevelt. This
law, also homeopathic remedies were defined as "drug", protected
homeopathic remedies, but determined that they should be prescribed by
physicians, this has given a rise of the commercial exploitation of
"natural", "naturopathic"
or "homeopathic" remedies, but was not beneficial for quality
homeopathy. The law might have worked fine for Chiropractic, but homeopathy had
problems with mainstream medicine from its origin; many physicians practicing
homeopathy since, not familiar with the essence
of homeopathy, polluted the pure Hahnemannian
philosophies which are minimal requirements to understand homeopathy.
Only Acupuncture, Chiropractic and Naturopathy are alternative systems which
are licensed in the US presently. In practice this means that the USA does not
have many famous homeopaths known in the world homeopathic community, those
homeopaths are not united enough to convince science or the federal government
of its importance and the
public does not understand what it is really about. Homeopathy has had some revival but is still at a level to low to lead the
world at this area except that the US controls the commercial and
information aspects over the internet especially with the anti-homeopathy
movement: the quackbusters
(quackwatch) and evidence-based
medicine movement. And not to forget: The pharmaceutical industry with its
billions of interests and lobbyists
influencing the US government.
