The 'High Potency Habit'
At the same time [c.1870-1910] as members of the 'Cooper Club'
were a dominant influence in UK homeopathy, a new approach began
to gain great influence, imported from the USA: the use of the higher
potencies. The person who eventually came to be regarded as the
chief exponent of this high potency method was Dr. James Tyler Kent
[1849-1916], based first in St Louis and later in Chicago.
This influence came to Britain in three successive waves. Firstly
from Skinner and Berridge [trained in Philadelphia] and brought
to 1870s Liverpool; secondly, by Gibson Miller, who trained with
Kent in St Louis, and which came to 1880s Glasgow; and thirdly,
from Margaret Tyler and Octavia Lewin in the 1908-13 period. The
latter 'Kent in Chicago' was imported into the British Homeopathic
Society [BHS] in London and thus in many ways can therefore be interpreted
as contributing significantly to the official policy of British
homeopathy [see Bodman, 1990, pp.85ff].
Kent, therefore, ushers in the twentieth century. He takes us from
the turbulent, laissez-faire and largely experimental homeopathy
of the late 19th century, the homeopathy of Burnett and Cooper,
with its eclectic emphasis upon herbs, tinctures and nosodes, into
the first two decades of the 20th century. Kent therefore forms
the linking bridge between the Cooper Club and the lay revival presided
over by figures like Ellis Barker, Tomkins and Puddephatt in the
30s, 40s and 50s.
This influence chiefly involved the use of the higher centesimal
potencies. These potencies were first developed by Skinner and Fincke
in the USA [see Winston, 1999, pp.89-97; and Fincke, 1989] by making
centesimal fluxion machines. These machines essentially contained
rotating glass phials which, once set up in operation, could be
filled, succussed and emptied repeatedly over many hours, without
human assistance, starting with a drop of tincture and alcohol/water
solutions. They provided a very convenient, mechanised means of
making high potencies in a short space of time: in hours rather
than weeks [see Winston, 1989].
A very useful biography of Kent is found in Dose and Singh, 1989;
by Winston in The American Homeopath 2, 1995, and in Winston, 1999
[see also Nicholls, 1988, pp.186, 217-8, 265-6 and 220-1]. We can
identify a number of reasons why Kent became such a seminally important
homeopath. He devised an exhaustive Repertory, based in structure
upon that of Jahr and Boenninghausen [see Saine, 1990], but much
larger and which soon supplanted it to become the standard work
[which it still is today]; he was a brilliant teacher of homeopathy,
especially materia medica; he emphasisedd the higher potencies,
which were very popular in the USA at that time; he emphasised most
centrally the Hahnemannian concept of case totality and the single
remedy [simillimum] above all other 'deviant' modes of homeopathic
practice, like low-potency combination remedies used as specifics,
an approach he detested.
First Wave: Skinner and Berridge
For British homeopathy, the original link with America lies with
Dr. Thomas Skinner and his conversion to homeopathy by the Liverpool-based
American homeopath Dr. Edward William Berridge [1844-1920]. Skinner
went to the US soon after his conversion to homeopathy in the 1870s
[see Winston, 1999, pp.96-7]. While there he worked on developing
a 'Potentising Continuous Flux-ion Machine', often termed by Americans
the 'Skinner Machine' [see Winston, 1999, pp.96-7], which was instrumental
in developing a good supply of the high centesimal potencies that
were being developed and used in the USA at that time and which
soon became the standard tools of American practice. The device
apparently used a similar type of process to that developed fifty
or so years earlier in Russia by General Korsakoff [see Winston,
1989; Winston, 1999, pp.87-102; see also Munz, 1997, pp.26-29; Fincke,
1989; and Bhumananda 1994, pp.251-3].
'Korsakoff was the real original inventor of the high potencies,
for he first conceived and executed the idea of diluting medicines
up as high as 1500. Sulphur, he said, acted better at that degree
of potency.' [Dudgeon, 1853, p.351]
Kent also produced one of these potentising machines himself, which
was still working up until the 1940s in an Erhart & Karl Pharmacy
in Chicago [see Winston, 1989; also Winston, 1999, pp.101-102].
At this point we must briefly plunge into some of the mysteries
of economic geography. At that time, Liverpool was very important
as a major UK port and linked both with the Tate sugar family [and
therefore with the West Indies], who sponsored the building of the
Hahnemann Hospital in Liverpool, [later the Tate Gallery in London]
and also the direct link with America as a trading port and for
passengers travelling or emigrating from northern England and Ireland
to the USA. It is most probable that this link worked to benefit
communication between British and American homeopathy throughout
the 19th century. The same is also true, though to a lesser extent,
of Bristol, the Wills tobacco family [who funded the building of
the Bristol homeopathic hospital] and its similar importance as
a port trading with the American continent, such as the southern
tobacco-producing States.
"It was through correspondence about some matter apart from
medicine that Dr. Skinner in 1873 became acquainted with Dr. Berridge
[in Liverpool]; but the acquaintance led to a desire on Skinner's
part to know something about homeopathy, as he had heard of some
good cures when over in America. The upshot of it all was that Dr.
Berridge prescribed Sulphur for our patient in the MM potency, prepared
by Boericke of Philadelphia. When Skinner felt the homeopathic remedy
at work inside him it was a revelation indeed. 'I shall never forget
the marvellous change which the first dose effected in a few weeks,
especially the rolling away, as it were, of a dense and heavy cloud
from my mind.' He was cured of the constipation, the acid dyspepsia
[which he had had all his life], sleeplessness, deficient assimilation
and general debility, and restored to a life of usefulness and vigour...'
[Clarke, 1907]
The above passage clearly shows Skinner must have been to the US
before 1873. Due to ill-health, Skinner had in fact been 'hors de
combat' for 3 years, during which time he worked on transatlantic
liners as a medical officer and had become acquainted with US life
and homeopathy. Presumably he had friends there too, as he stayed
there in 1876 to attend a conference. Again, we see the link with
geography [see Blackie, 1996, p.558; also Bodman, 1971].
Second Wave: Gibson Miller
The Kentian influence also came to these shores with Dr. Robert
Gibson Miller [1862-1919] in Glasgow, who studied with Kent in 1884
in St Louis. He in turn began to influence UK practice chiefly in
Scotland, from where the 'high potency habit' formed a separate
and parallel strand to that centred mainly in Liverpool with Drysdale
and Berridge [see Winston, 1999, pp.200-201]. Gibson Miller published
his ideas in 3 small works: Elements of Homeopathy, Relationships
of Remedies and A Synopsis of Homeopathic Philosophy.
Very little is known, as yet, about how and why Gibson Miller went
to see Kent in the first place, or how his visit was financed. There
might also have been a link, a suggestion maybe from Berridge in
Liverpool, and Skinner, of course, who had strong links there since
1875. It may have occurred because UK homeopathy was declining,
and they were 'fishing around' for new ideas and direction. They
clearly felt that in terms of new homeopathic initiatives, the USA
was the place to look. Yet the 'old guard' who controlled UK homeopathy
at that time were deeply sceptical of high potencies and very resistant
to change [see Blackie, 1996, p.561-2]. The 'old guard' mainly comprised
Drs. Hughes, Dudgeon and Dyce-Brown, who dismissed the high potencies
as laughable.
This aspect also raises another question about the links between
19th century Scottish and English homeopathy which I have not really
explored. How much did Gibson Miller disseminate his newly-acquired
skills to other UK doctors? Another question is how much he also
disseminated his new ideas to the medically unqualified? As we have
seen with Clarke, much of the basis for even teaching lay persons
the rudiments of homeopathic prescribing was a response to its continued
decline. It would be useful to know, therefore, if Gibson Miller
did the same in Scotland and for similar reasons. Gibson Miller
travelled from Scotland to St. Louis and 'brought the beginnings
of Kentian Homeopathy back to Britain.' [Gibson Miller's Obituary,
BHJ 9, 1919, p.107]
"Gibson Miller was the founder of all Glasgow homeopathy,
well disposed towards the laity, lost a son in the Great War [1916]
and he died of cancer soon after. He never recovered from the loss
of his son...he was tall and scraggy, a typical Carcinosin type,
as John Paterson used to say. He was associated with Berridge, Thomas
Skinner and Simpson of anaesthetic fame. Miller, like Skinner, used
high potencies, while Cooper used low and Clarke used mixed."
[John Pert, 1991, former chief pharmacist at Nelson's in a telephone
conversation]
Miller was also an important influence on the future Physician
Royal, Sir John Weir, who he treated for boils and converted to
homeopathy [see Bodman's Weir Obituary in BHJ, 1971].
Third Wave: Tyler
Kent's influence also came to Britain in a third wave through Dr.
Margaret Tyler:
"About 1907 her great concern was for the future supply of
homeopathic physicians, as there was no definite post-graduate teaching,
though much had been done by individuals. She was a great believer
in going to the fountain-head, as she termed Hahnemann, and feared
that much of the homeopathic practice was getting away from her
ideal. She then, with her mother, instituted the Sir Henry Tyler
Scholarship fund to help doctors go to the USA to study under Dr.
James Tyler Kent, a keen Hahnemannian in practice. This created
a stir and much controversy, but Dr. Tyler carried on with her efforts
and many of the physicians of today studied under Dr. Kent between
1908 and 1913." [from Margaret Tyler's Obituary, BHJ, 1942-1943,
by Sir John Weir]
By about 1905 British homeopathy had been in decline for over twenty
years [see Nicholls, pp.207-8; Leary et al, 1998, p.264]. The BHS
seems to have been looking out for some new ideas and guidance,
a fresh impetus. Kent provided it, not only as a brilliant and highly
successful practitioner and teacher of homeopathy; but also as a
powerful writer and theoretician. He developed, brought out, greatly
extended and emphasised its underlying philosophy.
The new breed of Kentian homeopathy was particularly influential
on the generation of British homeopaths who were born in the 1870-1890
period, because they were in a position to benefit directly from
scholarships which would send them over to Chicago to receive a
year's tuition with the great man himself. Kent died in 1916.
Several key figures in British homeopathy took up these study tours
including Drs. Douglas Borland, John Weir [1879-1971], Dorothy Shepherd
[1871-1952], Harold Fergie Woods [1888-1961] and Percy Purdom [c1880-c1940].
It is no exaggeration to say that as a result, they returned to
the UK with tales of a form of homeopathy bordering on the miraculous
[see Winston, 1999, pp.200-209]. They then began to transplant this
Kentian form of homeopathy within the BHS and RLHH, and this soon
came to be somewhat unquestioningly regarded in the UK as the new,
standard mode of practice throughout the 1920-60 period. There is
no evidence that Margaret Tyler [1857-1943] herself went to the
US, but she corresponded with Kent. It was her mother, Lady Tyler,
who set up the Henry Tyler Scholarship in her husband's memory,
just after his death in 1908.
Kentianism
Kent also created the first coherent, persuasive and highly influential
philosophy, which has largely gone unchallenged within the movement.
It was formulated as a synthesis of Swedenborgian mysticism and
the more romantic portions of Hahnemann's Organon and the Miasm
Theory of The Chronic Diseases [see Kent, 1900, Lectures on Homeopathic
Philosophy].
However, as quickly became apparent, Kent's homeopathy was rooted
in a rather dogmatic and puritanical attitude, and seems to derive
from a pedantically scholastic and uncritical reverence for everything
Hahnemann wrote.
"Kentianism, then, was metaphysical, dogmatic, puritanical
and millennial. Homoeopaths who failed to achieve results with the
high dilutions lacked intellectual skill and rigour, as well as
the moral fibre for the arduous task of identifying the simillimum.
In short, so far as Kentians were concerned, the faithless were
responsible for the corruption and decline of the movement."
[Treuherz, 1983]
It is also deductive and didactic and denies that the facts of
the outer world are in any sense superior to, or an arbiter for,
theoretical 'principles'. In that sense it seems stubbornly medieval
in its extreme deductivism. It turns its back completely on the
empirical approach of scientific rationalism and thus on allopathy.
'When a man thinks from the microscope, and his neighbor's opinion,
he thinks falsely. Nothing good can come from this. Evil must take
place, and changes, which are the ultimates of his internal thought,
will take place in the body' [Kent, 1926]
'The microbe is not the cause of disease. We should not be carried
away by these idle Allopathic dreams and vain imaginations but should
correct the Vital Force'[Kent, 1926]
'The Bacterium is an innocent feller, and if he carries disease
he carries the Simple Substance which causes disease, just as an
elephant would.' [Kent, 1926]
This stubborn determination to studiously ignore the rest of medicine
and the 'ideological push' of the last 200 years, makes it appear
to the modern eye, as reactionary, hard-line and perverse.
"You cannot divorce medicine and theology. Man exists all
the way down from his innermost spiritual, to his outermost natural."
[Kent, 1926]
'Experience has a place in science, but only a confirmatory place.
It can only confirm that which has been discovered through principle
or law guiding in the proper direction. Experience leads to no discoveries,
but when man is fully indoctrinated in principle that which he observes
by experience may confirm the things that are consistent with law.'
[Kent, 1900, p.40]
This passage, which is typical of Kent, can only make sense to
a follower of pure dogma; Hahnemann, for example, would have totally
disagreed by saying that 'experience' had taught him all he knew.
Science, like homeopathy, is rooted in observations and experiments
in the outer world, not in the enforcement of dogmas. Kent seems
to place 'the cart before the horse' by stressing the philosophy
and principles of homeopathy over and above the simple fact that
it is primarily a system of therapeutics in which the progress of
the patient is always far more important than the religious [or
other] beliefs of the practitioner. In every science principles
derive from observations, and do not dictate them.
Maybe this ideal of detachment and emotional neutrality even science
subtly fails to comply with at times. Science occasionally gainsays
the event before it happens and in effect dictates the outcome or
‘spin’ which should be placed upon some experimental
data. This may be based upon theoretical considerations, political
or financial factors. For example, the allopathic view of most clinical
trials of unorthodox medicine, can hardly be described as ‘emotionally
neutral’ or detached. Someone watching a horse-race with a
million dollars placed on one horse, can hardly be expected to manifest
very much emotional detachment and neutrality!
However, as one of the most important homeopaths after Hahnemann,
Kent has had a big influence as a theoretician, a practitioner,
a writer and as a teacher of homeopathy. His influence has been
especially strong on American, Indian and British homeopathy [see
Nicholls, 1988, p.186], while the Continentals seem to have been
largely untouched by his influence, except in Switzerland and the
influence of Dr. Pierre Schmidt. In the case of India, their delight
in homeopathy in general and Kentianism specifically might depend
to some degree upon their own general interest in philosophical
aphorisms and religious matters. Homeopathy supplies them both;
Kent supplies them in profusion.
As a follower of the Christian mystical sect of Immanuel Swedenborg,
Kent delivered a blend of Hahnemann's Organon and miasm theory,
spiritual forces and a crude psychology, comprising only will, understanding
and intellect [see Aphorisms]. Some details of Kent’s ‘psychology’
and his ‘hierarchies’ are discussed by Taylor [1997,
pp.5-7], elaborated by Vithoulkas [1980, pp.23-57 and especially
pp.46-7 and pp.23-25], and considered by Sharma [1995, pp.39-40].
Kent approached his philosophy with typical vigour. He viewed all
Hahnemann's works and especially The Organon with a fundamentalist
zeal, seeking to amplify and reinterpret every word of the Master,
much like a theology scholar or biblical commentator. His Lectures
On Philosophy, for example, form quite literally a rambling Swedenborgian
commentary to the first half of Hahnemann's Organon. To him these
were precious and immutable homeopathic truths that it is sacrilege
for anyone even to question, let alone ignore, dilute, negotiate
or compromise. He even goes as far as saying:
'A man who cannot believe in God cannot become a homoeopath.'[Kent,
1926, Aphorisms]
It is especially in Kent's rather arrogant use of language, which
hits us when reading his works, which really illustrates this fundamentalism
and the precious certainty of his approach to homeopathy. The following
quote from many possible ones, clearly demonstrates this:
'...beware of the opinions of men of science. Hahnemann has given
us principles... it is law that governs the world and not matters
of opinion or hypotheses. We must begin by having a respect for
law, for we have no starting point unless we base our propositions
on law.' [Kent, 1900, p.18]
Kent infers that homeopaths should base their whole approach upon
the hard dogmatism of these ideas, which he elevates to the status
of certitudes, and not upon the ever-shifting ideas of 'mere men'.
He is claiming a great authority and power behind such 'immutable
principles', a power which like some divine form, stands 'above
and behind us' and which we dare not abrogate or dilute for fear
of one's soul's damnation.
As an attitude, this is so indistinguishable from that of fundamentalist
religion, that it is clearly apparent how this form of homeopathy
possessed, and generated for itself, so many problems with creative
and imaginative people who much prefer to experiment and find truths
out for themselves, eg. Samuel Hahnemann. This whole approach denies
anyone the privilege or luxury of that kind of freedom. Total and
unquestioning devotion to a given creed seems to be the basis of
Kentianism, not reason or real-world experiment. As to whether Kent
was truly a Hahnemannian homeopath see Henr 1995 and Cassam, 1999.
It is especially when he lapses into the moral sphere of homeopathy
that his deep dogmatism reveals itself. When he is speaking purely
about homeopathy, which is comparatively rare, he does well, but
as soon as he enters human affairs, a certain clearly-recognisable
'Bible-punching' tone seems to shines through...as the following
quotes clearly demonstrate:
'It is law that governs the world and not matters of opinion or
hypothesis. We must begin by having a respect for law...' [Kent,
1900, p.18]
'This means law, it means fixed principles, it means a law as
certain as that of gravitation... our principles have never changed,
they have always been the same and will remain the same...' [Kent,
1900, p.28]
'Had Psora never been established as a miasm upon the human race,
the other two chronic diseases would have been impossible and susceptibility
to acute diseases would have been impossible...' [ibid. p.126]
Kent would have no dealings with allopaths nor with low-dilutionists,
who were pejoratively portrayed as 'mongrel, milk-and-water half-homeopaths'.
Homeopathy was seen very dogmatically by him as pure classical homeopathy
as 'laid down in tablets of stone by the master' or nothing. This
narrow, simplistic and somewhat inflexible view of homeopathy had
split American homeopathy right down the middle, causing a very
acrimonious clash of ideologies. It is generally conceded that this
bitter wrangling contributed significantly to the precipitous decline
of homeopathy in the USA during the first half of this century [Kaufman,
Coulter, Rothstein, Gevitz].
The Swedenborgian influence
To Swedenborg, the realms of nature, and particularly the body
and mind of man, were theatres of divine activity...A 'universal
analogy' existed between the various realms of creation. The physical
world was symbolical of the spiritual world and this, in turn, of
God. He conceived a resonant system of hierarchies of God, universe
and man. He became a theologian and established the 'Church of the
New Jerusalem' [see Nicholls, 1988, pp.262-5; also Rankin, pp.70,
82, 94-5, 107, 112].
A Supreme Divine purpose reigned throughout creation. The life
of the universe, whether physical, mental or spiritual was the activity
of Divine Love. The physical universe is given its true place in
the economy of creation, the womb of man's most enduring and real
life. Briefly, Swedenborg was heretical to mainstream Christianity,
because he espoused that personal liberation could be won easily
from an all-loving God and that 'original sin' was non-existent.
'...he dispensed with the idea of original sin', [Treuherz, 1983,
p.48]
As with Paracelsus and 'later theosophies', the link with homeopathy
is to be found in the vast hierarchies of form and spirit that he
conceived as existing between God, mind and matter and penetrating
throughout the universe. Kent linked all of this to the process
of potentisation, the vital force and the miasms of Hahnemann, seeing
them both as philosophies that fully confirm each other and which
for him, married together splendidly, into a new organic creation.
The following quotes from his Aphorisms more than amply illustrate
this point:
'Radiant substances have degrees within degrees, in series too
numerous for the finite mind to grasp.'
'The lower potency corresponds to a series of outer degrees, less
fine and less interior than the higher.'
'When it has passed to simple substance, the Radiant form of matter,
it has infinite degrees. To express the degrees from the Outermost
to the Innermost, we might say a grain of Silica is the Outermost;
the Innermost is The Creator.'
'There are degrees of fineness of the Vital Force. We may think
of internal man as possessing infinite degrees and of external man
as possessing finite degrees.'
'There are degrees within degrees to infinity.'
'Low potencies can cure acute diseases because acute diseases
act upon the outermost degree of the Simple Substance and the body.
In chronic disease the trouble is deeper seated, and the degrees
are finer, hence the remedy must be reduced to finer or higher degrees
so as to be similar to the degrees of chronic disease.'
Swedenborg composed a 'theory of correspondences or connections
between the visible and invisible worlds', [Fontana Dictionary of
Modern Thought, 1981, p.617]. The James family including Henry and
William were Swedenborgians and in Massachusetts and East Coast
'among its adherents [were] most of the social, intellectual and
business elite.' [Coulter, vol. 3, pp.467-8; see also Winston, 1999,
pp.166-7]. At that time, many of the 'Transcendentalists', led by
Emerson, were very taken with philosophies like Swedenborg's.
Another important adherent was Dr. John James Garth Wilkinson [1812-99]
who was a big friend of Henry James senior. Wilkinson had trained
at Hahnemann College Philadelphia and published several books on
the sect. Indeed, many people were attracted to Swedenborg's ideas,
including the English artist and poet William Blake [see F Treuherz,
1983, The Homeopaths, 4:2, winter 1983, Heklae Lava or the Influence
of Swedenborg on Homeopathy, p.36-7 [pp.35-53; see also Barrow,
1985]; re Blake see Ackroyd, 1994:
'[Blake]... picked up separate ideas, or fragments of knowledge,
as he needed them. He was a synthesiser and a systematiser, like
so many of his generation, but it was his own synthesis designed
to establish his own system of belief... he borrowed notions from
Swedenborg or Paracelsus. He was above everything else an artist
and not an orthodox thinker' [Ackroyd, p.90]
'...Blake has picked up elements of Thomas Taylor's Neoplatonism
as well as Swedenborgian doctrine and some alchemical terminology.
Everything upon the earth has a spiritual correspondence, and the
world itself is inspired with the breath of divine humanity.' [Ackroyd,
p.116]
'Blake was very clear about his spiritual ancestors. He told John
Flaxman that 'Paracelsus and Behmen appeared to me', but their arrival
meant he turned away from Swedenborg. 'Swedenborg's writings are
a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of
the more sublime, but no further. Have now another plain fact: any
man of mechanical talents may from the writings of Paracelsus or
Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's.'
It is true that the writings of Paracelsus and Boehme [Behmen] do
seem to come from a purer spring of spiritual revelation than those
of Swedenborg...' [Ackroyd, p.147]
'..many critics have noticed how intimately the 'Marriage of Heaven
and Hell' is related to Blake's movement from Swedenborg towards
Boehme and Paracelsus...' [Ackroyd, p.15]
'...there is no doubt that the 'Marriage' represents Blake's most
serious attack upon Swedenborg and Swedenborgians...' [Ackroyd,
p.153]
There are definite links with other forms of American Transcendentalism
in the 19th century especially the Romantic literary figures like
Thoreau, Hawthorne and Emerson.
The teachings of Swedenborg are especially reflected in Kent's 'Lectures
on Homeopathic Philosophy', where they are shaken up with parts
of Hahnemann's Organon to form an attractive but baffling cocktail
of ideas. Before his death, he published three main works: 'Repertory',
'Lecture on Materia Medica', 'Lectures On Philosophy'. He also edited
the 'Journal of Homeopathics' from 1897 to 1903: seven volumes,
constituting the lectures which he gave to advanced doctors and
personal articles. Kent's writings on Philosophy and Materia Medica
were published in this journal before they came out in book form.
After his death a collection of aphorisms, lesser writings and notes
and cases was published [1926, 'Lesser Writings, New Remedies, Aphorisms,
etc.'].
Kent seemed to emphasise a rather tenuous link between religion
and science and this spilled out into a form of hard, dogmatic,
fundamentalist creed. There seemed to be no middle ground, no shade
of grey.
Presumably this approach worked well in the USA at that time and
held converts of homeopathy together. Over here it tended to make
Kentian homeopaths look rather strange and to set homeopathy itself
even further apart from mainstream allopathy than before. Once the
Kentian creed became the official, legitimised creed of the BHS
[c.1910-60] then it seemed that one had to be like that in order
to practise any form of homeopathy. This tended to push homeopathy
as a subject, even further out on a limb from allopathy than before,
and thus no further dialogue between them became possible.
"In practice, Kentian homeopathy was, according to Wheeler,
'slightly contemptuous of any attempt to make terms with other medical
knowledge regarding, as it were, the teaching as something so transcendental
that no reasoned explanations are likely to have any validity."
It is of interest that Dr. Percy Hall-Smith, in 1930, a member
of the BHS, said:
"My own conviction is that our teaching is not sufficiently
practical, and the approach unduly philosophical, and too far removed
from the line of thought of the average doctor... It requires a
rather special type of mind and outlook to swallow at the first
blush undiluted 'Kentian principles'. The average mind trained on
a more materialistic basis is liable to be repelled by such teaching
at the outset. "
Dr Gordon Smith [Faculty]:
"But for high dilution, the man of the 200th potency is nowhere,
he is still among the crudities of posology. For we have brethren
who are not happy till they get to the 10,000th, and even then they
are not quite at home, they deem the 100,000th a good point to start
from, and hence upwards to anything you like... I am satisfied in
my mind that the 100,000th potency or dilution made according to,
and by, the Hahnemannian method has never yet been seen on our planet.
And if it should some day make its appearance, someone will have
spent much time over its preparation which might have been employed
to better purpose."
Kent's Obituary appeared in the BHJ 6, 1916, pp. 337, 541. As Kent
himself implies, in order to be a good homeopath one must also be
a good Swedenborgian first! This idea is relatively easy to illustrate
from looking at his writings, which are packed with aphoristic certitudes.
Kent's Morality
Disease might be seen as an entirely human phenomenon. It probably
also reflects the fact that nature 'in the raw' is in a state of
near-perfect balance and harmony, which contrasts with the many
conflicts and disharmonies of the world of human affairs.
We can also argue that perhaps it is the 'moral uprightness' of
animals which protects them from disease. By 'moral uprightness'
I mean their purity and the way they stick very strictly to their
received pathways in life, never deviating from ingrained habit
patterns and conventionalised patterns of accepted behaviour. By
contrast, humans seem to lack these ingrained habit patterns and
to conduct themselves in various diverse ways driven on according
to their own innate willpower. No doubt Kent, and other religious
moralists, would tend to regard 'the way you live your life' as
being very intimately bound up with the quality of such a life [on
a spiritual basis] and its relative 'sickness' with regard to the
possible experience of suffering, symptoms and signs of disorder,
imbalance and disease. Such moralists, as we shall see, do regard
disease as having a moral dimension, and of very largely deriving
from slack morals.
Kent took the view that the basis for this human 'origin' of disease
is moral. That means that we have disease because we have lost a
moral order for our lives, and that it is a direct and inevitable
result. Are the two equated at all?
We don't have to search very hard to find a mass of moral ideas
within homeopathy which illustrate how puritanical and moralising
homeopaths tend to be. The following quotes from Kent's Lectures
and from his Lesser Writings reveal a very rich seam of such material:
"You cannot divorce medicine and theology. Man exists all
the way down from his innermost spiritual to his outermost natural"
[Kent, 1926, Lesser Writings, p.641]
"A man who cannot believe in God cannot become a homeopath."
[ibid., p.671]
'The body became corrupt because man's interior will became corrupt.'
[ibid., p.681]
'Man... becomes disposed to sickness by doing evil, through thinking
wrong...' [ibid., p.664]
'Psora is the evolution of the state of man's will, the ultimates
of sin.' [ibid., p.654]
'This outgrowth, which has come upon man from living a life of
evil willing, is Psora.' [ibid., p.654]
'Thinking, willing and doing are the 3 things in life from which
finally proceed the chronic miasms.' [ibid., p.654]
'...had Psora never been established as a miasm upon the human
race... susceptibility to acute diseases would have been impossible...
it is the foundation of all sickness.' [Kent, 1900, p.126]
'Psora... is a state of susceptibility to disease from willing
evils.' [ibid., p.135]
'The human race today walking the face of the earth, is but little
better than a moral leper. Such is the state of the human mind at
the present day. To put it another way everyone is Psoric.' [ibid.,
p.135]
'Psora... would not exist in a perfectly healthy race.' [ibid.,
p.133]
'As long as man continued to think that which was true and held
that which was good to the neighbour, that which was uprightness
and justice, so long man remained free from disease, because that
was the state in which he was created.' [ibid., p.134]
'The internal state of man is prior to that which surrounds him;
therefore, the environment is not the cause...' [ibid., p.136]
'Diseases correspond to man's affections, and the diseases upon
the human race today are but the outward expression of man's interiors...
man hates his neighbour, he is willing to violate every commandment;
such is the state of man today. This state is represented in man's
diseases.' [ibid., p.136]
'The Itch is looked upon as a disgraceful affair; so is everything
that has a similar correspondence; because the Itch in itself has
a correspondence with adultery...' [ibid., p.137]
'How long can this thing go on before the human race is swept
from the earth with the results of the suppression of Psora?' [ibid.,
pp.137-8]
'Psora is the beginning of all physical sickness... is the underlying
cause and is the primitive or primary disorder of the human race.'
[ibid., p.126]
'...for it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human race,
the very first sickness of the human race that is the spiritual
sickness... which in turn laid the foundation for other diseases.
[ibid., p.126]
It seems pretty clear from these quotes that Kent took a very puritanical
and moral line about the origins of disease within the human race
and he apparently felt that Psora was equivalent to Original Sin
or the Fall of Man. That is the clear implication of the above remarks
he made. He got himself into this very strange position very largely
from insisting that homeopathy necessarily involves a religious
dimension which places a moral duty upon the practitioner, and thus
the homeopath has a morally redeeming influence through cure. Thus
he viewed the homeopath as a Godly saviour who dispenses spiritual
as well as physical cures; and that illness stems from a corrupted
state of man, which homeopathy can cure. Kent's logic is rather
like...'all sick men are bad; Socrates is sick, therefore Socrates
is bad'. And he also contends:
'all sickness originates from internal causes; internal causes
are spiritual; therefore all sickness has a spiritual basis'
And then from there he equates internal and spiritual causes as
the miasms. Thus in his view the miasms are to be viewed as internal
spiritual sins, or derivatives of them.
He also avers another line of argument:
'all disease causes [inner world] are invisible and nebulous;
all potentised remedies are of a similar nature; thus potentised
substance, and especially the higher potencies, are the only means
of curing disease [by reaching into the subtle interior realm of
disease causes]'
This also leads to his oft-repeated adage of 'the higher the deeper'.
This probably also forms the basis for his strong advocacy and use
of the very highest potencies. In this manner we can analyse and
dissect Kent's brand of homeopathy.
Like the Mediaeval Churchmen, Kent shows a remarkable devotion
to deductive logic and an apparent ignorance of induction or of
knowledge based upon experiment, data and the evidence of the senses,
to which he also remains either oblivious or contemptuous. There
are some good parallels between Kent and Thomas Aquinas [1225-74]
in that both treat their subject matter with immense reverence as
received dogma which cannot even be questioned, and then build upon
that base their towers of speculation and philosophy. Both also
tend in the direction of rigid dogmatism, excessive preciousness
and zealous devotion to 'truth' as received dogma, not as freedom
of thought or experimentation, towards which both seem utterly opposed.
Kent, like many others seems to regard illness as an unwanted evil,
obtained through contamination, which must be 'cleansed' out of
the system by the healer. In most cultures the healer is thus regarded
as an agent of divine assistance, a cleanser, or purifier of souls.
Kent seems to have causally linked together two otherwise distinct
and separate observations, which may not be causally connected at
all. Is it really true that lack of morals leads to disease? Are
the sick to be viewed as bad? And the bad as sick? And what of those
who die of cancer, disfigured by arthritis, ravaged by Human BSE,
muscular dystrophy or MS? Are we to truly believe they 'deserved'
those illnesses? And to have reaped what they have sown? Or is this
all a nonsense? It is so very hard to say. Perhaps Kent has mistaken
'moral rectitude' with health and purity and hence concluded that
disease must therefore stem, pretty fundamentally, from an amoral
or immoral position. But it is surely quite a different thing to
arrive at such a conclusion from sustained observation and contemplation
of the natural world, than it is by deciding that is the way things
have to be, because some religious dogmas say so.
KENT'S INFLUENCE ON UK HOMEOPATHY
A very easy way to illustrate the effect Kent had on UK homeopathy
[see Winston, 1999, pp. 200-209] is to simply compare the potencies
in use by several British homeopaths from the early part of the
century and from the 1930-80 period.
It is well-known that all the early UK homeopaths used the very
lowest potencies. In the early days they used 1x to 6x in the main,
with most work being done by 3x, 4x and 6x. From c.1870-1920 they
tended to use 3x to 12c with very occasional use of 30 or 200 for
nosodes. Still, most work was done with the 1x, 3x and 6x . Then
from c.1920-90 there was a gradually increased use of the higher
potencies, ranging from 30 to DM, more especially in the USA, but
also in the UK, though with a predominant and continued use of lower
potencies on the Continent.
It is instructive to compare Kent's use of potency with that of
Hahnemann, who he claimed to follow so assiduously. Hahnemann made
almost exclusive use of potencies 6, 9, 12, 18, 24 and 30. 9, 18
and 24 appear never to have been used since he died, the others
have become standards. 60% of his prescribing was with the above
potencies and no higher in the 1820s; 95% of his prescribing was
with the above potencies in the 1840s [based upon data from Bradford
and Haehl].It is true that he made occasional use of potencies like
100, 300, 190, etc. towards the end of his life, but they are still
a minute percentage of his overall regular approach [see Handley,
1997]. It therefore seems there is scant evidence in the realm of
potency for regarding Kent as a Hahnemannian homeopath [see also
Henr, 1995].
Skinner and Clarke stood out as very unusual in routinely using
the 30 and 200. Cooper and Burnett mainly used tinctures and 3x.
Most UK homeopaths continued to get their best work from low potencies
like 1x, 3x and 6x. At that time 6c, 12 and 30c were regarded sceptically
as unacceptably high potencies. Yet the beginnings of change were
certainly apparent in experimentation before 1890. There has been
a gradual shift away from 3x and 6x as 'standards' and a move towards
making 6c and 30c as standard starter potencies.
We should be under no illusions about these material doses which
dominated nineteenth century practice. Their use as the legitimised
potencies for the entire movement, was little more than a thinly-disguised
concession to allopaths, to whose criticisms the early English homeopaths
had become peculiarly sensitive. It was also a cleverly inspired
and expedient political device. By keeping to low potencies they
sought to deflect accusations of homeopathy being mere 'faith healing'
and thus rather than lose converts, they hoped to win more from
the ranks of regular physicians by employing this tactic. But the
more full-blooded, 'heavy duty' homeopaths, who were committed to
using whatever potencies they liked, and who deferred to no authority
and no dogma [eg. Clarke and Burnett] called this a sell-out, a
betrayal and 'pandering to allopathy.'
Kent's Potencies
I have extracted Kent's potency data from his Lesser Writings [publ.
1926] pp.198-637. All potencies listed were recorded. We can make
a few points from this data so as to more clearly summarise Kent's
prescribing habits. Almost half his prescribing is over 20M [185
= 48.6%]; almost 3/4 [74%] of his prescribing is over 10M [281 out
of 381]; 33 out of 381 [= 8.7%] is with potency 30 or less, which
was virtually the maximum potency Hahnemann ever used on a regular
basis. Kent's most popular potencies were in the 10Ms [96 = 25.2%],
followed by the CMs [52 = 13.7%] and the 50Ms [50 = 13%]. It is
true that he occasionally made use of the lower potencies like 30,
30x and 12, but these only account for 8% of his total.
If we now compare with this data for the rest of this century we
see an interesting pattern develop. Cooper data from his book on
Cancer, 1880 gives 71% mother tinctures and 17% 3x. Similar data
from Burnett's 'Cure of Consumption' [1890] shows 16% mother tincture,
17% 3x and 21% 30c. Data from 'The Prescriber' of Clarke [1924]
gives 8% 3x, 39% 3c, 26% 6c and 13% 30c. Shepherd's 'More Magic
of the Minimum Dose' [1940] gives 9% 6c, 64% 30c, 6% 200 and 3%
10M. Finally Speight acutes [1976] gives 3% mother tincture, 50%
6c, 6% 30c and 4% 200. Her chronic prescribing [1979] gives 42%,
12% 30c, 6% 200 and 3% 10M [see Morrell, 1995].
From this data we can easily see that Cooper, Burnett and Clarke
were mainly centred in their use of potency at mother tincture,
3x and 3c. Speight and Shepherd both show a much increased use of
6c and 30c by comparison. Speight was the partner in practice of
Noel Puddephatt taught mainly by Clarke and a self-confessed Kentian.
Shepherd was taught by Kent.
Figures can, of course, be very confusing, but if, for example,
from this data you separate out the 3x you can see a clear decline
from 17% at the turn of the century to 8% in 1920s and then 0.4%
in the 40s and 50s. No such pattern exists in data I have examined
for several Continental homeopaths derived in the same way, from
their publications [Morrell, 1995, On Potency, Parts 1-3], and thus
it seems safe to conclude that it is the influence of American prescribing,
and especially of Kent, and an influence absent from Continental
prescribing, that has brought this change about. For example, the
use of potency by the French Vannier and Chavannon in 1973 is not
substantially different from that of the Dutch Voorhoeve in 1910.
Voorhoeve used tincture 12%, and 83% of his prescribing covered
potencies 3x, 4x, 5x and 6x. Vannier and Chavannon used 57% 7x and
21% 3c or equivalent [Korsakoffian] potencies.
Regarding Indian prescribers, who are probably the most Kentian
in the world, Kamthan [1974 and 1978] uses 39% 30, 21% 200 and 18%
above M. Phatak [1978] uses 32% 200 and 26% M. Menon [1977] prescribes
very similarly, with roughly 30% each for 30, 200 and M
Kent's Impact On 'Progress'
'In 1877 I first became interested in homeopathy... in the City
of London homeopathy was very popular amongst Stock Brokers and
clerks. There were in the City of London four homeopathic chemists,
who did a good business purely in homeopathic medicine only... there
were also several homeopathic doctors in Finsbury... there were
also homeopathic chemists in north, east, south and west London,
generally supported by a doctor. There were then more than 30 homeopathic
chemists in London. Of all these, one remains in the City of London
and there are four in the West End... what is the reason for this
decadence? ...some time between 1880 and 1890 the gospel of the
high potencies was started in America and spread to this country,
and of course, became known to our allopathic friends. I know very
little of the merits of these high potencies, as for fifty years
the low dilutions have never failed me in curable cases. This new
homeopathy gave the opponents of Hahnemann a tremendous lever to
crush and discredit a system of medicine founded on rock, and allopaths
made good use of the words 'faith healing'...' [letter from FJB,
Homeopathic World, June 1932, pp.255-6]
This letter from a British homeopathic doctor illustrates a viewpoint
which blames the American 'gospel of the high potencies' for the
decline in homeopathy in England and the USA during the first half
of this century. It is a complex topic and this forms only one element.
But it does seem to be a strong argument with some basis in fact.
There is a trend among some self-styled 'classical' homeopaths
towards the 'Maverickisation' of Kent within homeopathy:
"He became the director of a clinic where he taught medical
specialists how to analyse and choose the significant symptoms of
a case rapidly. To give some idea of his activity: in addition to
his busy private practice, at his dispensary in Philadelphia alone
he and his pupils saw more than 18,800 patients in 1896 and 16,000
in 1897!" [Excerpt from: Biography of James Tyler Kent, by
Pierre Schmidt MD, 1950, Geneva]
Let us try and place this ‘production line’ version
of homeopathy into some kind of sensible context. If we assume,
not unreasonably, that Kent saw patients for 5 hours per day for
5 days a week, and for 50 weeks a year [= 1250 hours per year],
then 18,800 patients translates into 15 patients per hour, every
hour, or one per 4 minutes. Even if we believe this, and I don't,
what possible kind of homeopathy is this?
Clearly, Kent still wields enormous charm and power over the high
potency and 'classical' devotees within homeopathy, who seemingly
will believe absolutely anything said about him. For them he seems
to offer a form of puritanical certainty which seems to be so strikingly
absent from the rest of the movement.
The dogmatic and quasi-spiritual tendency within homeopathy has
re-surfaced recently amongst some of the students of the former
Arch-Druid Thomas Maughan. One of his main students of the 1970s
was Martin Miles, who practices homeopathy in London. In 1992 he
published a work called Homeopathy and Human Evolution. Like our
remarks about Kent, the following quotes from Miles illustrate similar
use of dogmatic language and the forcing upon its reader of a 'spiritual
paradigm' which has been thoroughly blended with some basic homeopathic
ideas. It looks like history repeating itself.
'...the physical vehicle is the temple of an indwelling spirit,
this outward cloak being an exact reflection of the being who inhabits
it.' [Miles, 1992, p.2]
'...consciousness is that vital ingredient that humanity has and
which the animal and vegetable kingdoms do not have...before our
present incarnation the all-enduring spirit laid down the rough
outlines of the path we would travel. This will have been forgotten
by most of us. The spirit's descent upon the cross of matter usually
amounts to being plunged into the overwhelming darkness of the earthly
life.' [ibid., p.4]
As with Kent, we can question the possible relevance of what is
being said here to homeopathy, but also to the use of language and
the rather pompous and preachy tone in which it is being dictated
as pure dogma at the reader, and about which no opinion is requested
and no negotiation is invited. Personally, I do not regard our earthly
life as an 'overwhelming darkness' and I also see abundant evidence
every day for consciousness in the myriad life-forms on this planet.
Thus I reject all this as nonsense. There might be a place for this
viewpoint within homeopathy, but how on earth such beliefs can be
seen as essential prerequisites to being a good practitioner is
beyond me. I would say that such ideas are utterly irrelevant to
the practice of medicine.
Discussion
We have reviewed the impact of Kent's brand of homeopathy. It seems
likely that it could only have been imported to UK homeopathy during
a period of decline, when minds were mainly focused upon finding
some new set of ideas which might have breathed new life into a
dying movement rather than upon critically adopting something with
few genuine merits. Within homeopathy practised by doctors, Kent
seemed to provide just such an answer at the right time. The problem
was, however, that his brand of homeopathy proved rather bizarre,
dogmatic and esoteric. Rather than drawing homeopathy back into
the mainstream and reducing its frictions with allopathy, it tended
to push it even further into the margins and make it seem even more
unacceptable than ever. The use of high potencies and the emphasis
upon psora theory and Swedenborgian metaphysics would clearly have
strained any possible comprehension of homeopathy by regular physicians,
and even those within homeopathy who preferred to use low potencies
found it unacceptable [see Nicholls, 1988, p.186]. Thus it probably
alienated more people than it converted and proved in many respects
to have hastened British homeopathy’s further decline, rather
than serving to revitalise a flagging movement, as had been hoped.
Apart from his metaphysics [which has evaporated from view], and
true constitutional prescribing [which is here to stay], Kent's
chief and lasting impact upon British homeopathy was in the use
of potency, which has increased greatly since the early years. Most
British homeopaths used 3x or 6x as their mainstay right up to 1900.
By 1950 this had shifted to 6c and 12c with abundant use of 30.
Use of 30 or 200 would have been virtually unthinkable in 1900,
but was commonplace by 1960. This is mostly due to Kent's brand
of homeopathy:
'Taken as a whole the opus of Kent has been and is still very
influential... Coulter has documented the controversy between high
and low potency prescribers in America. Frank Bodman has shown how
Kent influenced British homeopathy, and the low material doses of
Hughes' influence were gradually superseded as John Weir and Margaret
Tyler, who studied with Kent, gained more influence between 1902
and 1924' [Treuherz, 1983, p.48].
Looking on the positive side, we can see that Kent and his ilk
'broke the mould' of the 'Old Guard', of the materialist, pathological,
Hughesian, low potency homeopaths who completely controlled UK homeopathy
from 1860-1910. Kent showed that there was another way. He showed
that you can just as easily 'get good work' not only from tinctures,
1x and 3x, but also from potencies way beyond the Avogadro limit.
In that sense, his influence has been very useful, as it has shown
that the therapeutic efficacy of homeopathy rests not upon the potency
or strength of the drug in use, but much more upon the selection
of the remedy which is truly homeopathic to the case, and more especially
upon deep constitutional prescribing.
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Peter Morrell
Honorary Research Associate in the History of Medicine, Staffordshire
University, UK
This article was originally published at :
http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/pm_brita.htm
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