WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT POSSIBLE? I agree with the Queen’s homeopath!

I do not seem to agree on much these days with doctor Perter Fisher, the Queen’s homeopath (see for instance here, here and here), but I might share his view on vaccinations. This became clear to me through reading a recent comment made by a homeopath, and not just any old homeopath. The author is Rudi Verspoor, the Dean and Chair Department of Philosophy Hahnemann College for Heilkunst, Ottawa. He was Director of the British Institute of Homeopathy Canada from 1993 to early 2001. Part of his time is spent advising the Canadian government on health-care policy and in working for greater acceptance of and access to homeopathy. I take the liberty to reproducing his comments here:

Dr. Peter Fisher, in an interview published in The American Homeopath 2015 edition (p. 39), made some comments related to vaccination. Dr. Fisher supported the validity of vaccination as a health promoting measure. I disagree, but that is not why I’m writing. Dr. Fisher then claimed that Hahnemann himself supported them.

“Some homeopaths attack vaccination unaware that in the 6th edition of the Organon, Hahnemann has said that vaccination is a wonderful thing and it has saved the lives of children. Do see the footnote under paragraph 46. Hahnemann seems to have considered that the Jennerian method of vaccination – scratching cowpox pus under the skin – was both preventative in epidemics and curative when it was used against similar disease states. Both homeopathy and Jenner’s cowpox vaccine came around in the late 1700s and Hahnemann saw the benefits of cowpox vaccination.

In the present day and age, we have been able to eradicate polio, smallpox, diptheria and even tetanus by judicious use of vaccination. I see cervical cancer being wiped out by the use of the HPV immunization program. We have to wake up to the benefit of vaccination. There can be some adverse effects, no doubt, but vaccination has done a lot of good. Homeopaths would be able to do a lot by staying out of the vaccine controversy.”

Presumably because of the ‘fact’ that the very founder of homeopathy himself supported vaccination comes the advice for homeopaths to stay out of the “vaccine controversy.” I can understand, while not agreeing, with the view that getting involved in this controversy might damage the advance of homeopathy. However, I cannot understand nor agree with the claims made about Hahnemann’s views on vaccination.

In the comments that follow I have taken Dr. Fisher’s wise advice “to stick to core knowledge” using the Organon as “our foundation.” As for the advice that “all homeopaths must study it,” I take this to mean a careful and considered study, as presumably all homeopaths have studied it to some degree. In my defence, I offer 30 years of careful study, the fruits of which are available to anyone who cares to examine them, in various articles for homeopathic journals, in particular detailed articles in Homeopathy-On-Line (www.hpathy.com), and most particularly in a comprehensive analysis of all of Hahnemann’s writings, freely available at www.homeopathiceducation.com.

All this to say that I feel I have met the conditions set down by Dr. Fisher, and offer my considered response to his claims regarding Hahnemann and vaccination based on my detailed assessment of the relevant provisions of the Organon, in particular the footnote to Aphorism 46, which Dr. Fisher specifically references.

These are the claims made by Dr. Fisher in respect of Hahnemann and vaccination. I have simply quoted from the text of the interview and in the order they were made:

1. “in the 6th edition of the Organon, Hahnemann has said that vaccination is a wonderful thing and it has saved the lives of children.”
2. “Hahnemann seems to have considered that the Jennerian method of vaccination – scratching cowpox pus under the skin – was both preventative in epidemics and curative when it was used against similar disease states.”
3. “Hahnemann saw the benefits of cowpox vaccination.”

To start, we need to be clear on the term ‘vaccination’. Historically, it refers to ‘the Jennerian method of vaccination’, the cow pox also being referred to as ‘the vaccine disease’ (OED), and then extended by Pasteur to refer to all subsequent inoculations of disease agents to act as a prevention of that disease when encountered naturally.

Next, to assess the three claims against the footnote to Aphorism 46, to which we are specifically referred, we need the context within which each is situated.

In Aphorism 46, the context for the footnote Dr. Fisher refers us to, Hahnemann gives various examples from nature where a stronger similar disease removes a weaker one. This itself follows from the preceding Aphorisms 43-45, wherein Hahnemann sets out the important principle of the law of similar, that in Nature the stronger similar disease annihilates the weaker similar disease. Hahnemann follows this with examples to be found in Nature herself.

Hahnemann first notes that smallpox disease, his most prominent example, has been found to have lifted and cured numerous maladies with similar symptoms and then gives various examples involving a reported cure by smallpox of a similar existing disease in a person. One of these examples involves the natural smallpox disease lifting the cowpox due to similarity and the greater strength of smallpox.

Hahnemann then goes on to comment on the other side of the equation, namely the impact on the stronger smallpox disease from its encounter with the weaker cowpox disease. Though this is not directly concerning the principle of the law of similars he is illustrating, it is nonetheless a valuable observation: “the ensuing outbreak of smallpox is at least greatly diminished (homoeopathically) and made more benign by the cowpox which has already neared its maturity.”

Thus, while the stronger smallpox disease is not, or course, destroyed, it is “at least greatly diminished and made more benign.” The conclusion is that the weaker similar disease (cowpox) does not act preventatively against the incoming disease, but lessens its impact. We also learn that the weaker disease is removed “at once entirely”, consistent with his principle that the stronger similar disease annihilates the weaker one.

At this point, we get the footnote Dr. Fisher is referring to:

This appears to be the reason for the beneficent, remarkable event that, since the general dispersal of Jenner’s cowpox inoculation, smallpox has never again appeared among us either so epidemically or so virulently as 40-50 years ago when a city seized therewith would lose at least half and often three-quarters of its children by the most wretched plague death.

What I understand Dr. Hahnemann to be noting here tangentially, following from his previously mentioned observation regarding the impact of an existing cowpox disease in a person on contracting smallpox, is a possible reason for the reduced severity of smallpox, since Jenner’s deliberate inoculation of people with cowpox disease (as opposed to the more random act of nature in infecting some people with cowpox, such as milk maids).

END OF QUOTE

Fascinating, isn’t it? The minds of some homeopaths seem to work differently from that of a responsible healthcare professional. I am tempted to say WHO CARES WHAT HAHNEMANN WROTE ABOUT IMMUNISATIONS 200 YEARS AGO? IN VIEW OF THE CURRENT EVIDENCE, ONLY A COMPLETELY DELUDED AND DANGEROUS QUACK CAN ARGUE AGAINST THEIR BENEFITS.