A Homeopathic History of Cancer

Reprinted with permission from sueyounghistories – 5.3. 2010

Cancer is a very difficult and dangerous disease, which kills homeopaths, naturopaths and allopaths alike with impunity.

There is evidence that cancer becomes the main focus for illness in the human population with the advent of environmental changes and major changes in dietary habits in recent times, though contact with carcinogenic agents is not a modern phenomenon, we are more likely to be in contact with these today.

There are a very few cases of cancer known from the archaeological record, mostly mummified Egyptian priests who were known to be exposed to poisons and possibly metalworking, and thus exposed to toxic fumes or ingestion. Cancer is not described commonly in our historical medical literature until the explosion of cases witnessed at the dawn of our current industrial era.

The treatment of cancer is a litigious area, and it is illegal to claim a ‘cure for cancer’, and legislation affects orthodox and alternative medicine comprehensively in some countries. Nonetheless, many homeopaths have treated cancer in the past, before the current legislation, and homeopaths across the world still treat cancer today, in countries where such prohibitive legislation does not hold sway.

The list below, though very far from complete, sets out the homeopathic history of the treatment of cancer.

1841 – Johann Josef Wenzel Graf Radetzky von Radetz , an Austrian General in Franz I’s military, was a patient of homeopath Johann Taubes Ritter von Lebenswarth and Christophe Hartung, a student of Samuel Hahnemann, on the recommendation of Friedrich Jaeger von Jaxtthal (who was  the physician of Klemens Wenzel Prince von Metternich), and the story of his cure of a cancerous tumour in his right eye was written up in Homeopathy Explained  by John Henry Clarke in 1841, and in The British Journal of Homeopathy  in 1843, and in many other homeopathic journals around the World. This famous cancer cure was responsible for the spread of homeopathy throughout Europe,

1845 – Harris Livermore Coulter page 60: The allopaths of course, reacted with horror but could only watch in frustrated impotence as the homeopaths raced ahead. By 1845, homeopathy had remedies for syphilis = syphilinum, gonorrhoea = medorrhinum, diphtheria = diptherinum, cancer = carcinosin, and many others, all of which are still used widely today.

1850 – Jeanie Senior survived cancer for 27 years under the treatment of James Manby Gully, the first woman in Whitehall (Florence Nightingale told her she had been ‘a noble Army of one’.)

1855 – C G Kallenbach  wrote a case of uterine cancer  he cured with kreosote.

1856 – Edmund William Gosse’s father was Philip Henry Gosse who placed his wife Emily under the care of John Epps for her breast cancer after previously following the treatment plan of a mysterious Dr. F, but though she achieved some relief thereby, died in 1858, (Dr. F was later identified as Jesse Weldon Fell, an allopath who was one of the founders of the New York Academy of Medicine.

Jesse Weldon Fell was dismissed from his profession for association with a Dr. Gilbert and his new cancer cure – this debacle resulted in Jesse Weldon Fell moving to England. In England, the allopaths rapidly took up with Jesse Weldon Fell’s cancer cure, incorporating it into The Middlesex Hospital where the allopaths experimented on the poor.

Jesse Weldon Fell’s American associates remarked how startled they were that Jesse William Fell managed to work ’some hocus pocus’ over the authorities at The Middlesex Hospital in order to gain access to their patients, ably abetted by The Times, which published an article extolling Jesse Weldon Fell’s new cancer treatment, and of course The Lancet which praised the Consultants at The Middlesex Hospital for their initiative.

The Lancet had to retract this praise when it became clear that Jesse Weldon Fell’s patients were dying from his ‘cure’. Emily Gosse died one month after her treatment by Jesse Weldon Fell.  The resultant storm which descended on Jesse Weldon Fell’s head as a result, caused The Lancet to turn a full circle in its attack, closely followed by the British Medical Journal.

However, the staff at The Middlesex Hospital continued to defend Jesse Weldon Fell who rose to pre-eminence and fortune as a result. Jesse Weldon Fell returned to America a wealthy man, a friend to Abraham Lincoln),

1859 – Richard Tuthill Massy wrote: Extract of a Report From a Cancer Hospital.

1863 – Robert MacLimont wrote Cancer, and the new mode of treating it with Charles Henry Marston (based on the research of John Pattison) in 1863.

1866 – James George Hunt  wrote On Cancer .

1866 – John Pattison  had over thirteen years and 4000 cases of cancer  to report on when he began to publish his research, and he was the first person who used hydrastis in the treatment of cancer (in 1852).

He also advocated the use of Sanguinaria for the treatment of cancer, and he wrote “Cancer: it’s nature and successful and comparatively painless treatment without the usual operation of the knife”  (in which he extols the virtue of calendula cream), “Cancer: its true nature, treatment, & cure, A Short Practical Treatise on Cancer “ (in which he extols the virtue of hydrastis), “An answer to the lecture delivered by T. Spencer Wells on cancer curers and cancer cures”, “The old methods of treating cancer compared with the new, Preface to seven thousand of cases of cancer … treated with Dr. Pattison’s new remedy”, “Cases of cancer, lupus, and ulcers, treated with dr. Pattison’s new remedy”, A second appendix to the successful treatment of cancer,”  “The only successful and rational treatment of cancer yet known.”

1871 – William Hitchman wrote Syphilis, phthisis, scrofula, cancer, erysipelas and almost all diseases of the skin, have been conveyed, occasioned, or intensified by vaccination.

1871 – Joseph Bell , the inspiration for the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, was a long-time supporter of homeopathy  who caused outrage when he converted to homeopathy ( He wrote “Case of Osteoid Cancer .”

1871 – Charles Harrison Blackley  wrote Notes on the Etiology of Cancer

1872 – James Paget agreed with James Compton Burnett that the homeopathic remedy Arsenicum was of use in cancer .

1872 – Lady Walpurga von Hohenthal Paget believed that Cesare Mattei had cured her husband of cancer and she became a staunch convert to electro-homeopathy .

1874 – Robert Thomas Cooper was a great cancer doctor (alongside James Compton Burnett) and he maintained that in the treatment of such advanced and physical diseases the lower potencies and tinctures produce the best work.

He was called ‘the man who can cure cancer,’  and 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. He wrote ”Cancer and cancer symptoms.”

1880 – Joseph Pettee Cobb was the teacher of Emile Herman Grubbe, who experimented with Xrays. The results of these experiments were so startling that homeopaths soon began to potentise these rays and pioneer the treatment of cancers with Xrays.

1884 – Richard Sandon Gutteridge wrote “The distribution, nature, causes, and successful treatment of cancer: Without Operation and Without Opiates.”

1893 – Reuben Ludlam  referred Rose Lee, a woman with breast cancer  to Emile Grubbe, who treated her with radiation therapy.

1896 – Emile Grubbe was the first person to use radiation treatment on a cancer patient when he discovered fractionated radiotherapy. Emile Grubbe was also the first to use lead as protection against Xrays. Emile Grubbe is the originator of the Memorial Award of the Chicago Radioloical Society.

1900 – Sarah A Cole was one of the first to experiment with the treatment of cancer by the use of coloured glass through which the sun’s rays were focused to the seat of the disease. She realized a very high percentage of cures in cases where the cancer was still confined to an area and before it had spread its tentacles throughout the entire system.

1902 – Gustave Adolphe Van den Berghe carefully recorded all the cases, many of cancer, which he treated between 1869 and 1902 on thousands of men, women and children from Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

1908 – Clarence Granville Hey contributed cases to Therapeutics of Cancer by John Henry Clarke .

1908 – Paul Francois Curie was the first person to study Radium, used in homeopathic form for safety. This study was to become a family affair when Paul Francois Curie’s grandson Pierre Curie and his wife Marie Curie conducted their experiments with radioactivity.

1908 – John Henry Clarke wrote “The Cure of Tumours by Medicines: With Especial Reference to the Cancer Nosodes.”

1909 – Eber Bradley claimed expertise in ‘… obstetrics, extracting teeth, doctoring children, burns, old sores and cancerous ulcerations (with an) average of 600 patients per year…’ and about nine home visits daily. He commonly prescribed “golden seal root” for mouth cankers, turpentine and lard for chest colds.

1913 – Paul Degrais wrote Le Radium son emploi dans le Traitement du Cancer des angiomes, chéloïdes, tuberculoses locales et d’autres affections with Louis Wickham , and he inscribed a copy for Leon Vannier. The work also appeared in an English translation printed in London in the same year. It was preceded by the larger work Radiumthérapie; instrumentation, technique, traitement des cancers, chéloïdes, naevi, lupus, prurits, névrodermites, eczémas, applications gynécologiques (Paris, 1909),

1914 – Harold Wynne Thomas warned at the Homeopathic Congress in London in 1924 that the vast amount of salt added to our food contributed to cancer.

1917 – Edward Bach was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and lived for another 19 years.

1918 – Albert Wolff  used ozone for colon cancer and cervical cancer.

1920 – Antoine Nebel studied the action of diluted tuberculin, which he courageously experimented on himself.  He showed the parasite which he attributed to  the origin of cancer. He managed to establish the theory and became famous in the by studying the regression of tumors under the influence of the homeopathic remedies.

From 1910 to 1920 Antoine Nebel reported on the treatment of incurable cancer patients with a vaccine, which is practically identical with the Schmidt vaccine, in his book Les cycles dévolution des Parasites du cancre humain, which represents the results of twenty years of research.

1923 – Raphael Roche claimed to be able to cure cancer.

1924 – William Arbuthnot Lane 1st Baronet  co-wrote , endorsed  and wrote the foreword  to homeopath J Ellis Barker’s  Cancer, how it is Caused, how it Can be Prevented, and he wrote the foreword to Maori Symbolism by Ettie A Rout (where he expounds his disgust of Western civilisation as it pertains to diet and lifestyle and its role in cancer and ill health). Speaking in the House of Commons: William Arbuthnot Lane 1st Baronet said ‘… Cancer is a disease of civilisation. It is practically unknown to the primitive races leading primitive lives…’

1926 – Leon Vannier published reports he called precancerous Cancériniques.

1926 – Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch was already advising those patients of his who had been operated on for cancer not to return to their original sleeping place for fear of environmental radiation.

1927 – Herbert George Wells recommended homeopathic treatment for his wife Amy Catherine Robbins (?-1927) when she was ill with cancer .

1927 – R M Le Hunte Cooper , son of Robert Thomas Cooper , read The Cancer Problem before the International Homeopathic Congress .

1928 – Charles Mondain wrote A study of Blood Serum with reference to the Diagnosis of Precancerous Conditions .

1929 – Willis Alonzo Dewey wrote Cancer: A Summary of the Opinions of Eminent Medical and Surgical Experts .

1930 – George Henry Burford  wrote Malignancy: The Increasing Plague Of The Century, The Problem Of Cancer, Homeopathy In Malignant Disease .

1931 – Mauritius Fortier Bernoville wrote The Homeopathic Treatment of Cancer, Cancer of the Stomach and Stomatitis.

1932 – J Ellis Barker wrote Cancer, the Surgeon and the Researcher, Cancer, how it is Caused, how it Can be Prevented with a foreword by William Arbuthnot Lane 1st Baronet , Cancer and the Black Man.

1932 – Erwin Liek wrote The Spread, Prevention, and Control of Cancer, where he argued that cancer was a disease of civilization, a “cultural disease” whose incidence was on the rise, and endorsed the view that cancer was rare among the primitive races of the world.

He was convinced that the growth of cancer could be traced to things like arsenic pesticides, artificial fertilizers, excessive smoking and drinking, and sexual promiscuity. People were getting too many X-rays, and stress from the rapid pace of modern life was weakening our overall bodily resistance, making us vulnerable to cancer. Faulty nutrition, in Erwin Liek’s view, was the single most important cause of cancer. In 1934, Erwin Liek wrote The Struggle against Cancer.

1939 – Sigmund Freud died after battling oral cancer for 30 years, his doctor, Max Schur, was interested in homeopathy.

1939 – Cyril Meir Scott  wrote Victory Over Cancer Without Radium or Surgery, Cancer Prevention: Fallacies and Some Reassuring Facts.

1941 – Henri Matisse was diagnosed with cancer, and became a patient of homeopath Pierre Vannier and survived for 14 years.

1945 – Norbert Glas founded St. Luke’s Medical Practice where he treated many cancer cases,

1946 – Arthur Hill Grimmer estimated that he treated several thousand cases of cancer during his career. Grimmer wrote Homeopathic Medicine and Cancer: The Philosophy and Clinical Experiences

1947 – Mary Roberts Rinehart went public about her breast cancer, and after a radical mastectomy, she lived until 1958. Mary Roberts Rinehart, the ‘American Agatha Christie’, was also a homeopathic nurse, and married to a homeopathic doctor.

1950 – Ardeshir Kavasji Boman Behram conducted research into the treatment of cancer using peptides from a simple non-toxic substance, which could be administered orally and was found to shrink malignant tumours in mice.

About 25 years ago he began to work with Michael Tisdale at Aston University to isolate the active ingredient, but it was not possible to proceed to the clinical evaluation of a single anti-tumour agent because of the lack of funding.

1958 – Donald MacDonald Foubister  was responsible for the definition of the Cancer miasm in 1958, and he was also the first person to use Folliculinum .

1960 – Aldous Huxley, whose mother Mary Augusta Ward  was an advocate of homeopathy and a practicing homeopath, was diagnosed with cancer – he died in 1963.

1988 – C Everett Koop  published his Report on Nutrition and Health, where he pointed out that “dietary imbalances” are the leading preventable contributors to premature death in the U.S. and recommended the expansion of nutrition and lifestyle modification education for all health care professionals. This was borne out by the Centers for Disease Control which stated that 54% of heart disease, 37% of cancer, 50% of cerebrovascular disease and 49% of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) is preventable through lifestyle modification.

2007 – Liverpool Homeopathic Hospital, Liverpool Department of Homeopathic Medicine, Old Swan Health Centre, St Oswald’s Street, Old Swan, Liverpool L13 2GA. This hospital runs a complementary cancer clinic offering treatment with homeopathic remedies and Iscador.  There is also a branch at Liverpool Homeopathic Hospital, Department of Homeopathic Medicine, Mossley Hill Hospital, Park Avenue, Liverpool, L18 8BU.

2009 – A team from Columbia University visited Indian homeopath Prasanta Banerji’s Homeopathy Research Foundation (PBHRF) for a possible research collaboration and exchange of medical expertise in the field of paediatric oncology.

Prasanta Banerjee had been appointed as Honorary Adviser to the Indian Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, and was also on the programme advisory committee (PAC) for the Indian National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).

2010 – Cuba is ready to release a new “homeopathic” cancer drug to the international market. Marketed as Vidatox, it is the result of work by Cuban biologist, Misael Bordier and uses the venom of the blue scorpion.

2012 – The Banerji Protocol was founded in India (Lionel R. Milgrom PhD, RHom, Maria R. Ringo DHMHS, BGS, and Karen M. Wehrstein BAA, DIHom, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Emerging Economies’ Need for Cheap, Efficient Health Care Makes Western Anti-Homeopathy Rhetoric Irrelevant: Observations from the Canadian Homeopathy Conference, October 2011. Volume 18, Number 7, (a Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/acm.2012.0236,2012). pp. 1–4).

*’… Pioneered by father and son Drs. Prasanta and Pratip Banerji of the Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation (PBHRF) in Kolkata, India, the ‘‘Banerji Protocols,’’ as they are called, combine the latest disease diagnostic technologies (e.g., ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging, cancer markers) with the prescription of specific combinations of homeopathic remedies for specific diseases, particularly various cancers. Refined over 4 decades of clinical research, experience, and observations… *

*Where the reception of Banerji’s results differs from the Cubans’ is that they have impressed institutions in the United States, for example, leading to research collaboration with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston…

The Banerjis have also submitted 14 of their cases for evaluation to the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) Best Case Series Program (first launched in 1991 to seek out alternative approaches to cancer treatment and support prospective research projects utilizing therapies identified through this program)… Since 2002, the Banerjis have collected more than 27,000 cases on their database, including over half a million patient visits. *

The sheer scale and positivity of the Cuban and Indian results raises an interesting question. Given that economic power is shifting away from debt-ridden developed world nations (with their reliance on globalized industries, including pharmaceuticals) toward the rapidly growing economies of India, China, Latin America, and other parts of the developing world, just how relevant is the anti-homeopathy rhetoric from skeptics (and repeated by the media, particularly in the United Kingdom)?

© Sue Young Winter 2023