This article addresses a very complex and tangled topic about which, unfortunately, it is not easy to write with great clarity. Yet I hope it contains some interesting threads for all homeopaths, as the central themes seem to reappear perennially, wherever homeopathy is permitted to push down its vigorous roots. Basically we shall look at aspects of pathology, of potency, of signatures and esotericism and how these themes have tended to flow in and out of the homeopathic mainstream in Britain during the period in question, under the influence of different persons and in each case to assist with the solution of different homeopathic problems. It is an account, therefore, of an ongoing, dynamic dialogue between these different elements for the benefit of homeopathy.
I wish to make an assessment of the value and importance of the members of the so-called ‘Cooper Club’, both in relation to British homeopathy and also to homeopathy as a whole, and to locate them within the diverse, criss-cross currents of British homeopathy of the period. As we shall see, there are two main aspects to this. The first being their work itself and its influence on their descendants. The second is the way they stand as exemplars to others of how one can take the central concepts of Hahnemann and still forge relatively new and experimental healing systems. Their work also offers us a glimpse into a period when allopathy and homeopathy were both strongly influencing each other, dynamically and creatively.
To what extent they represent a problem for the traditionalists and a challenge to modern homeopaths to understand what they did and why and how that might be relevant to modern and future practice, remains for others to assess.
Like most homeopaths of his generation, Cooper was a ‘low potency man’ who mainly used mother tinctures and 3x as his mainstay. Such ‘3xers’ of the last century were opposed to the higher potencies ‘on principle’, which at that time was practically everything above 6x, and to the indiscriminate use of nosodes and unproven remedies. They sought justification for these views from Hahnemann, who never promoted the use of high potencies, even though he made use of them occasionally. But as an ardent ‘3xer’ Cooper would never have used higher potencies or nosodes, and would certainly have regarded them with a derisive skepticism. 3xers were afraid to get too close to the Avogadro limit and seemed very content with the clinical results they obtained with their material doses.
Cooper was probably the most conservative and least interesting of the 4 members of the Club named after him. Except, of course, for his ‘arborivital’ system - more on this below. The other ‘club members’ were Thomas Skinner, James Compton Burnett (1840-1901) and John Henry Clarke (1853-1931). They met weekly in London to discuss all matters homeopathic roughly over the period 1880-1900.
Dr Thomas Skinner MD (1825-1906), was born and educated in Edinburgh. Before becoming a homeopath he was a respected gynecologist and obstetrician who had worked very closely with Sir James Young Simpson (1811- 1870), Professor of Midwifery at Edinburgh and pioneer of the use of Chloroform anesthesia (see Concise Dict. Nat. Biog., 1995, p2751). Skinner maintained to the end that chloroform is ‘as safe as milk’. Skinner also developed the ‘Skinner mask’ for the administration of chloroform during anesthesia.
He became converted to homeopathy in 1875 in Liverpool,
through treatment for his own health problems, by Dr Edward Berridge (1844-1920).
Having been cured with a single dose of high potency Sulphur (MM powder),
the dramatic effect this dose had upon him was so profound and so unexpected
on his part, that it is hardly surprising that Skinner became such a thoroughgoing
high-potency advocate. He visited the US in 1876 and developed a centesimal
fluxion machine for making high potencies and named after him the Skinner
Machine. He thus became a very influential figure, linking US and British
homeopathy, and is often linked by name to other high-potency prescribers
of that period (‘high potency fanatics’ as Dudgeon referred to them: see
his Lectures, 1853: p143 and p407) like Fincke, Swan, Lippe, Guernsey,
Boericke et al. These were people who were at the forefront of the development
of the higher centesimal potencies and of investigating their clinical
use—mainly in the 1860-80 period.
Burnett was a prolific writer and wrote numerous
books and small pamphlets about diverse aspects of homeopathy.
Clarke graduated in Edinburgh in 1877 and then
studied homeopathy in Liverpool under Berridge. Burnett had also
settled and practiced near to Liverpool before moving to London in 1881.
Liverpool at that time rivaled London as an important center of homeopathic
teaching. It was also the major west coast port and linked to the USA by
ship.
Burnett and Clarke were at once the most heretical, the most interesting and the most deeply critical and experimental homeopaths of their generation and the finest figures in British homeopathy at the turn of the century—not only in their own opinion but also in that of their immediate successors like Wheeler, Blackie, Tyler and Weir. They were traditional Hahnemannians, but who somehow retained a critical and open-minded attitude about all new developments taking place in the wider field of medicine in general.
While European homeopathy ‘slept sweetly in ignorance’, Burnett and Clarke were revolutionising British homeopathy by importing and integrating into it every new development, such as isopathy, as well as weaving back into the fabric older heresies like Rademacher and Paracelsus along with new ideas like high potencies and miasm-based ‘nosodopathy’. They produced a rich blend of the old and the new; of tradition and of experiment. In this sense they developed for UK homeopathy a unique tradition to pass on to their descendants. But in many respects this ‘broad church’ heritage has been ignored, undervalued or misunderstood. It is a very tangled tale historically and in the development of ideas within homeopathy. I will try and unravel its main threads.
Cooper, Hughes, Schuessler and Burnett all tended to use the lower potencies and the tinctures of the remedies. Why is that relevant? It is tempting for us to think that they believed in materialistic notions - except Cooper and Burnett - and followed an organopathic or physiological version of homeopathy. Their views may have been dominated by the grosser and more physical aspects of disease, of anatomy, pathology and morbid symptoms. Certainly this was true of Hughes and Dudgeon, who were very like modern allopaths in their thinking. In the case of Schuessler, his ‘Tissue Salts’ were based upon the 12 salts commonly found in normal body cells and he tended to stress the mineral and structural aspect of the body, rather than any type of metaphysical orientation. It is not true of the others. Yet as we have seen, 3x was the norm for most of the 1800s. Burnett, for example, was strongly influenced by Rademacher and Paracelsus in that as a Gold Medal anatomist he appreciated the body organs and systems as interacting parts of a whole. This was very close to the medieval viewpoint of these two thinkers. To Burnett this was pure holism. To him the idea of Rademacher’s ‘organ remedies’ was not an unholistic and anti-Hahnemannian blasphemy at all, but a profoundly insightful and pragmatic reality which could be yoked into practice and brought to bear upon any case. It enriched one’s homeopathy when used correctly. Likewise, he had great respect for the plant and mineral remedies of Paracelsus and also for the old plant remedies of English herbalism.
The ‘Cooper Club’ continued to meet even after the deaths of Skinner, Burnett and Cooper, and up to 1914, mainly with Clarke, Wheeler, Tyler and Weir.
Dr Wilhelm Heinrich Schuessler MD (1821-1898),
Germany, is often written off as a failed homeopath, polypharmacist, traitor
to Hahnemann, and mongrel low-dilutionist, etc. He studied in Berlin and
Paris, founded the ‘biochemic system’, an ideological offshoot of homeopathy,
which concentrates on cellular activity only and ignores mental symptoms
and generals, and thus comes close to the pathology of low potency homeopaths
like Dr Richard Hughes. He published the ‘New Treatment of Disease, Abridged
Therapeutics Founded upon Histology and Cellular Pathology’ (1884, 9th
edition), giving special indications for the application of the inorganic
cell salts and indications of the underlying conditions of morbid states
of tissues—the ‘biochemic method’ of treating disease (Met. Res.
Group 1989), see his ‘The Biochemical Treatment of Disease’, and ‘Biochemic
Pocket Guide’. He introduced the ‘Tissue Salts’ in 1875 (see Tyler, p375).
Typical of the period, his cell salts are prepared in 3x or 6x potencies.
Here are Cooper’s directions on the topic:
‘The preparation of remedies used are tinctures
made on the spot from living plants, proof spirit being employed for the
sake of preserving their inherent properties...by allowing the spirit to
come into contact with the living plant - the branch, while still attached,
being kept plunged in the spirit and exposed to sunlight while thus immersed
- heliosthened, as I term it.’ [Cooper, 1900, p.xv]
Many within British homeopathy were impressed:
‘Dr Cooper had an uncanny genius for discovering
unusual remedies; some of these he got, no doubt, from old herbals; but
it has been said that he used to lie down before a flowering plant by the
hour, dragging from it its virtues of healing. He made extraordinary play,
in cancer, with some of his flowers, and one heard him called ‘the man
who can cure cancer.’ [Dr Margaret Tyler, in BHJ, 1932 p.136]
Cooper was undoubtedly influenced by Paracelsus in his ideas about the nature of forces within plants (his ‘arborivital medicine’) and it is possible that he was aware of the work of Goethe or Steiner, as he clearly believed cancers to be the result of hidden ‘growth forces’ within the person very similar to the growth-force in trees and other plants. This influence was pervasive and general, whereas in the case of Burnett the link to Paracelsus was mainly about organs and systems, rather than the healing forces within plants. Cooper makes it clear that his tinctures represent a dose forceful enough to counteract the growth force of the tumour, and therefore not in need of any dilution or potentisation (Cooper, 1900, p3). He also claims to have discovered his system from some 30 years of careful observation (ibid, p11)
He declared that there was:
‘...existing in plant-remedies a force...which
acted by virtue of a power in all respects similar to a germinating power
in the human body.’ [Cooper, 1900, p2]
‘...in the living plants we get a force which,
if applied...to disease, will arrest its progress and even cause its dispersal’
[ibid, p3].
It is clearly like a form of ‘signatures’ to believe that the healthy force from the plant can then be utilized against the unhealthy force in the diseased person. It is clearly related to the law of similars. It is also close to the concept - and probably underpins it - that disease is powered by an invisible growth-force that is present in the diseased organ and which can be ‘trapped’ in the form of sarcodes and nosodes, prepared there-from, which can then be used as a healing agent against similar diseases. So here we can see how close, metaphysically, these tinctures were to the whole nosode trend in late 19th century homeopathy.
‘Cooper’s hypothesis was that a curative ability or action is inherent in all living plant material, and that this does not require trituration, succussion or dilution to be effective....Cooper directed that the tinctures should be administered in single drop doses, and that these remedies should be given time to act fully before being repeated. The dose was administered in powder form with a single drop of the tincture on to a dry tongue and on an empty stomach.’ [Bonnard, 1994, p23]
‘He was influenced by the Doctrine of Signatures and relied on observation of plant structures and characteristics...Cooper claimed that arborivital remedies were most suitable in crises which were incurable by any other means, and this includes homeopathic methods’ [ibid, p23]
So we can discern here a clear justification for the use of nosodes or disease-products in the more generic concept of disease-cause as a ‘miasm’ or essence which resides in the diseased tissue. This underlying concept, which comes straight from Hahnemann’s Miasm Theory published in The Chronic Diseases of 1828, is echoed clearly in the work of Cooper, both in his idea that cancer is a result of a deranged growth-force within the person and that a similar though healing growth-essence can be extracted from the plant in the form of a ‘heliosthened’ tincture.
Some examples of Cooper’s remedies include Brassica rapa, Silphium perfoliatum, Scrophularia nodosa, Iris versicolor, Caltha palustris, Ornithogallum umbellata, Crocus vernalis, Crocus sativus, Matthiola annua, Thapsus bursa-pastoris, Juniperus and Spiraea ulmaria.
Clarke later described the other leading members of the Cooper Club as ‘the three most potent influences on the evolution of British Homeopathy today’, and wrote in 1901 after Burnett’s death: ‘It is not too much to say that during the last twenty years, Burnett has been the most powerful, the most fruitful, the most original force in homeopathy.’ Clarke was himself a physician to be reckoned with, and in time the author of a medical encyclopaedia which rivalled that of Hughes—his old enemy, and the man who had kicked him out of the British Homeopathic Society. And the same Hughes who Kent called ‘that skunk I will fight to the end of my days’. What wonderful respect for each other these old-stagers had!
In contrast to Burnett and Cooper, Skinner and Clarke tended to use the higher potencies and many of the new nosodes. Indeed, Skinner, Burnett and Clarke introduced many new nosodes into homeopathy, especially cancer ones. Examples include Melitagrinum, Morbillinum, Nectrianinum, Scarlatininum, Bacillinum testium, Coqueluchinum (also called Pertussin), Carcinosinum, Epihysterinum, Ergotinum, Hippozaeninum and Schirrhinum (see Allen, 1909, pp559-576) and the Bacillinum of Burnett [’a maceration of a typical Tuberculous lung introduced by Dr Burnett’, Boericke, 1927, p101]. It is a curious fact that so many great homeopaths became obsessed with isopathic nosodes during the last two decades of the 19th century. What was the basis for it?
To an extent this yen for using nosodes derived from the pathological and bacteriological discoveries of the day. It was perhaps the effect of the bacteriological discoveries in allopathic medicine, working in the minds of essentially poetic, metaphysical homeopaths. We can therefore trace this interest of Clarke and Burnett back to Koch and Swan.
There is what we might term a ‘bacterial lineage’ which runs from Robert Koch (1843-1910), Hering (1800-80), and Samuel Swan (1814-1893) and Pasteur (1822-95) through Fleming (1849-1945) to Bach (1886-1936) and Wheeler (1868-1939) in the 20s and then on to Paterson (1890-1954) in the 30s and 40s. We see allopaths and homeopaths mixed up here. There is no problem in that. The reason is that a lot of research into pathology and bacteriology was common to BOTH systems at that time. And an interest developed ‘across the wall’ which divided them, though no-one would admit this at the time. A form of creative ‘cross- pollination’ now so sadly lacking within medicine generally.
Samuel Swan of the USA (1814-1893) potentised
Cholesterinum, worked on nosodes and high potencies, prepared Tuberculinum
in 1871 (Blackie, p156), is said to have proved Lac defl. and Syphilinum.
He published a Materia Medica (BHA Lib, 1992); developed Lyssin from saliva
of a rabid dog, and proved Lueticum 1880, Anthracinum and Tuberculinum
bovinum (Smith, 1983).
In spite of the allopathic ‘bacterial lineage’,
nosodes also hark back to the Miasm theory of Hahnemann. Most homeopaths
regard disease states and diseased organs as containing a secret essence
or signature (miasm?) of that disease which can be forged into a healing
agent through potentisation. This is the theoretical basis for the
nosode. Hence, for a time, the use of nosodes became a very popular ‘excursion’
or avenue of possibility that people thought might lead to cures of dreadful
diseases. Certainly this was how most people viewed it. It was certainly
the strategy adopted for scourges like cancer and TB, and in the case of
Cooper, Burnett and Clarke, they followed an essentially Hahnemannian and
metaphysical line, somewhat in opposition to the more pathological inclinations
of doctors like Hughes, Dudgeon and Schuessler, who were more literal interpreters
of homeopathic teachings. In its crudest form ‘the nosode habit’ as Dudgeon
disparagingly calls it (in his Lectures), was pure and unbridled isopathy,
but at a more subtle level, major new remedies were discovered through
it (such as Tuberc. bov, Carcinosin, Lyssin, etc). So it cannot be written
off completely.
Bach did groundbreaking work along with Dr John
Paterson (b1890) and the Australian physician Charles Wheeler (1868-1939),
on the bowel flora, developing a series of Bowel Nosodes. Their use was
later refined in more detail by Paterson who died in 1954. Paterson was
a very interesting figure, a Glaswegian and very outspoken for a pragmatic
and undogmatic form of homeopathy. He also worked in Bradford twice a week
(Brown, 1989, 1990). These nosodes were potentised gut bacteria, grown
from cultures in the laboratory. They were given to patients and found
to fall into different groups each with its own cluster of associated remedies.
Examples include Proteus which is associated with many metal chloride remedies,
most notably Natrum mur; Gaertner, with many Calcs, fluors and phosphates;
Bacillus #7 with most iodides and Kalis (see Paterson, 1950, p12).
Their use is mainly for ‘unsticking’ stuck cases,
already taking a certain remedy, and they seem to reveal constitutional
patterns within the materia medica (see Paterson, 1950).
The Bowel Nosodes are in effect nosodes of ‘disease-causing
agents’ not from the outer world, nor from disease itself, but from the
body’s own waste products and the gut flora contained in the colon.
Although these great homeopaths of the past were
working with some of the most terrible scourges of their day - with the
grossest physical symptoms imaginable - they were nevertheless, pursuing
an essentially metaphysical approach for understanding the underlying nature
of the disease-force and how healing agents could be prepared from and
utilized against these conditions.
This is what remains so remarkable about that
whole era - the dark physical force (disease products and bacteria) and
the light spiritual force (flower and living plant extracts) cooperating
creatively to produce new ideas. Seen in this light, another great enigma
inches closer towards being solved. That is, why Edward Bach, working with
gut bacteria, should then turn and produce one of the most refined and
spiritualised forms of therapy ever conceived - using flower essences.
How could such a ‘dyed-in-the-wool bacteriologist’ have apparently made
such a dramatic ‘volte-face’ in his thinking? Yet as we have seen, a common
‘golden thread’ was there all along, hidden amongst some of the grossest
and most repellant materials on earth - bacteria, faeces and diseased organs.
And wouldn’t Paracelsus and Jung have adored the rich irony of that!?
I have found no direct evidence, but the flower
essence method probably derives from Cooper and is basically the same:
to use the sun’s rays to capture the ‘healing essence’ of a plant and store
it for all time in tincture form in proof spirit. However, one might speculate
along Steinerian lines as to why he preferred to use the flowers rather
than stems, roots or twigs. On this basis the flowers equate more closely
to the mind and emotions, while the green and harder parts of the plant
relate to growth forces on the physical plane and disorders like cancer.
There is, of course, no certainty that Bach followed
this line of argument, but the parallels seem too strong for it to be a
coincidence. Nor can the ‘general attunement with plants and flowers’ of
both Bach and Cooper be much of a coincidence. Although there is
no solid documentary evidence for this assertion, it seems clear to me
that Cooper’s ideas must have had a big impact upon the young Bach. A key
figure who was common to both was Dr Charles Wheeler, who worked closely
with Bach in nosode research and who had previously had strong ties within
the Cooper Club. He might have acted as a link between them. Much more
primary research into this is still required. Like Cooper, Wheeler was
also a very highly qualified physician, being the son of a doctor, MB BS
1892, 1st Class Hons Gold Medal, MD 1893, editor of the Homeopathic World
in 1909, trained at St Barts Hospital, London (Nisbet, 1913, p770).
So it appears that the same underlying ideas of
the dark force and the light force came to fruition twice for Bach, firstly
in the form of Bowel Nosodes and secondly in the form of his Flower Remedies.
In both cases it was a form of the doctrines of signatures and similars
at work both on a metaphysical plane in the mind of the homeopath, and
at the same time on the grossest physical level, that brought about these
amazing and deeply curative discoveries. On the one hand we see nosodes,
bacteria and bodily diseases; on the other flower essences and mental states.
Much like a metaphysical box and its lid.
“Hering’s Law of Cure, Kent’s Hierarchy of Symptoms
and Compton-Burnett’s elaboration of Paracelsian Organopathy are all practical
employment of the principle of recursion or fractal stages inherent in
all life processes....these three major contributors to homeopathy were
powerfully influenced by the philosophy of Swedenborg, and Hering and Burnett
were also students of Paracelsian principles as well. It is doubtful
that these three would have made such profound contributions without the
influence of Paracelsus and Swedenborg.quite simply and profoundly, it
is the recursive-fractal structure of the inner and outer nature of the
universe and of humanity that both Paracelsus and Swedenborg expounded.”
[Whitney, 1994, p22]
The only topic we have not considered here, and
which was the next big influence upon UK homeopathy, is Kentianism, but
that must remain a topic in its own right, for future inspection in greater
depth.
I hope I have also illustrated the basis for British
homeopathy being such a tolerant ‘broad church’. A tolerance which irritates
the purists amongst us. As it has come down to us, it acknowledges the
usefulness of many diverse methods and approaches to health and healing
using the basic tools of homeopathy.
From Nosodes To Flower Essences
Like Cooper, Bach also used the sunlight method of
remedy preparation, but used freshly picked flowers, and pure spring water
instead of twigs and dilute alcohol. It is of interest that Bach can therefore
claim not one but two contributions to our science - first with Bowel Nosodes
and second with Flower Essences.
Conclusions:
I hope the reader can now see why it can with some
justice be said that Bach ‘took the torch of truth’ from Cooper, who had
in his turn taken it from Hahnemann and Paracelsus before him. I hope also
that this ‘guided tour’ of a sixty year period of British homeopathy has
provided some interesting ‘food for thought’ which relates directly to
other times and places and illustrates the incredible richness of homeopathic
history.
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks are always due to Jerome Whitney,
Phil Nicholls and Alain Jean-Mairet for conversations, advice, encouragement
and ideas; to Michael Tomlinson for his brilliant editorial skills; to
Julian Winston for historical help, mainly with dates, always freely and
generously given; and to Mary Gooch for patient and unstinting help on
all matters homeopathic. But any errors of fact or interpretation are mine.
Sources: