The Curious Case of Charles Darwin and Homeopathy

Abstract

In 1849, Charles Darwin was so ill that he was unable to work one out of every 3 days, and after having various troubling symptoms for 2–12 years, he wrote to a friend that he was ‘going the way of all flesh’. He sought treatment from Dr James Manby Gully, a medical doctor who used water cure and homeopathic medicines. Despite being highly skeptical of these treatments, he experienced a dramatic improvement in his health, though some of his digestive and skin symptoms returned various times in his life. He grew to appreciate water cure, but remained skeptical of homeopathy, even though his own experiments on insectivore plants using what can be described as homeopathic doses of ammonia salts surprised and shocked him with their significant biological effect. Darwin even expressed concern that he should publish these results. Two of Darwin's sons were as incredulous as he was, but their observations confirmed the results of his experiments. Darwin was also known to have read a book on evolution written by a homeopathic physician that Darwin described as similar to his own but ‘goes much deeper.’

Darwin diagnosed?

“…However, Darwin began to dislike him, writing ‘he cared very much for the fee and very little for the patient’. As with scientists today, Darwin was never convinced about the efficacy of increasing dilutions in therapeutic doses of medicines, even though he appears to have tried successfully this approach on insectivorous plants (Ullman, ). Darwin stayed at Ilkley from 4 th October to 7 th December 1859.…”

eCAM: Darwin and Metchnikoff

“…Second, for the biologists, Darwin is even more familiar since this is his year, the 150th anniversary of the publication of On Origin of Species (disciplines embraced: genetics, evolution, ecology, ethology, anthropology and natural history). He is receiving well-deserved coverage in mass media and scientific publications; even in eCAM , there is an invited peer-reviewed commentary on his experimentation with homeopathy ( 1 ). Darwin also authored a book on the behavior of earthworms ( 2 ) so very popular with fisherman but of really greater significance to ancient medical practices as related to inflammation.…”