An Interview With Dro Allen Co Neiswander Table of Contents Introduction Transcript 1 - 57 Footnotes 58 Index 59 - 63 Dr. Allen C. Neiswander Dr. Allen c. Neiswander of Alhambra, California was interviewed at his office by Dr. John Duffy of rulane 1 University, on July 26, 1962>. Dr. Neiswander was born in Chio in 1914. He received his bachelor's degree from Bluffton College and went on to take a master's degree in genetics and a medical degree from the Ohio State University Medical School in June of 1942. After a year's internship at Los Angeles County General Hospital, he served for two and a half years in the army during World War II. On his return to civilian life, he enrolled in a six-week postgraduate course in homeopathy offered under the auspices of the American Foundation for Homoeopathy. Subsequently, he moved to California where he practices today. Dr. Neiswander is presently editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy. is past president of the Institute, and has held several other offices in 1t. He is also a past president of the California State Homeo­ pathic Society and the Los Angeles County Homeopathic Society. Dr. Neiswander was a willing and cooperative interviewee. He was quite relaxed and expressed himself freely. Despite h1s cooperation, he used his editorial pencil extensively, and he drastically altered the typescript. While most of the changes were stylistic, he did eliminate certain passages. I 0r. ~llen C. ~eiswander '1'ape 1 Oral history interview, Dr. Allen C• .f.\;eiswander, Alhsmbra, California, July 26, 196S. IntE:rvj_ewed by .Jr. John ..)uffy, rulane University of Louisiana. )r. 0uff y: 0r. 1eiswander, I wonder if we can start this interview by asking yciu to eive us a brief biographical sketch and tell us s o:11e thinL about your background--i·:here you were born, your formal training, and bow you happened to ret into homeopathy. Jr. J>;e iswander: I was born in J-anuary .31, 1914, in Ohio, and ,--raduated from Ohio State Gniversity Colle:::._e Ledica~ School in June, 1942. ~Y in~erest in homeopathy started from my father, who was a homeopath for over fifty years, and my bPp;inning- indoctrina­ tion was from him • .Jr • :Ju f f y ; Did you receive any homeopathic training? Jr. Neiswander: Not at Chio State Medica: Coll~ge. ~hen I returned from the war in 1946, I took an intensive six weeks course in homeo­ pathy. Ttis was a postgraduate course [iven only to medical doctors. It 'tJ8.S sponsored by the ;:,_,;1crican _Foundation for Homeopathy, and we had about ten of the best practicing homeo­ paths in the United States teachin[ the course. There were about 25 doctors in my class. Some of the teachers I had were Dr . .t.:lizabeth Hubbard, Dr. Julia Green, Dr. H. A. aoberts, Dr. day Spalding, and Dr. Allen Sutherland. T~is postgraduate course was held at Dr. Shadman's Hospital in Boston, Massa­ chusetts. Dr. Neiswander 2 J.- Jid you ta~e a four-year undergradu2te course? L. I took a four-year c'Jurse. I h2_v(:'. 2- bachelor I s dc,2·rce from Bluffton Collese, Ohio, a master's degree in ~enctics, and 0.- I see. You to'Jk alj your unierc:,raduate wori•: at Chio? Then I interned at Los An~el6s Cou~ty General Hospital in Los ~ngeles for a year and spent the next two and one half years in the army in .:orld ',Jar II. 0.- You menti,--,ncd that your father was a homeopath? That 1 s right--for fifty years in Ohio. J.- 00 you came from a homeopathic backrround? That's right. 0.- I wonder if l could ask you at this ti~e if you could tell me how you feel thit homeopathy differs from more orthodox medicine, as if you were talKi~g to a layman, and tried to ex- plain to him tte precise type of medicine you practice. iiell, primarily I'm interested in homc·opathy because it offers me many thins thcra utically that there is no other passible way that you car do anythinf for a person. D.- I was thinkin[ in terms of your conceptions of t~e principles of homeopathy. How do you define them? l'J.- 1vhat? ~-- If you were to explain homeopathy to someone who knew nothing about it, how would you explain how homeopathic practices differ from any other practice, i.~., the doctrine of similars. N.- All right. The dootrine of similars 1s generally credited to the many years of exact observations made by Dr. Samuel Hah- Dr. Neiswander 3 nemann. l He did some original work about 1810 on quinine. He found that ~uinine given to a normal person produced the kind of fevers seen in treatment. As a result of this find­ ing, he did some further work and developed the thesis of like curing like. In other words, the drug, or the metal, or a biologic or anything that is given to a well person will produce a certain type of symptoms. This same material when given to a sick person in small diluted doses will help to cure him. He also found the more he diluted and succussed the material the better were his results in curing patients. He found the remedies longer lasting, more beneficial, and produced less side effects in the patient. He preferred calling these minute dose medicines remedies to differentiate them from crude d~ugs. D.- I'm aware, as is anyone familiar with homeopathy, that there are divergences within homeopathy, for example, the efficacy let's say of high potency drugs versus low potency drugs. I'~.- I'm not averse to using either. I use mostly high potencies, but in some acute things in children and in elderly people, it's not safe to use the real high potencies--it's dangerous. At least this is my feeling. In some acute conditions I give patients remedies which they can use on their own--they are all low potencies. Patients call me on the phone almost constantly, and through their descriptions of their symptoms, I can give them a drug, a remedy to take, and they usually get well or much better. D.- You are familiar with the theoretical disputes between the pure homeopaths and the homeopaths who accept a good part of ~r. Neiswander 4 what we will call orthodox medicine. Do you consider yourself a pure homeopath or do you fE:el that homeopathy is a supple­ ment to regular medicine? 1._.- Basically, homeopathy looks at the person. j_'he person is ill, he has certain symptoms, and the best homeopath is the one who takes the time and the pa tie nee to inquire thoroughly and deeply into how this person responds, what he says, how he re­ acts, how he looks, and what are the results of Lis physical examination. To that extent, I c~rtainly am orthodox, in that any good internist will take a goon look at a pe.tient, a good history and give him a good physical. A good homeopath must do the same thing. That is the beginning, that is where you must start from. J.- Yes. ~hat I had in mind, for example, obviously •.• i..- I'm not in the middle of th,t fight and I'm never going to be. Until we know a great deal more about the specific action of these remedies in both high and low potencies. It is like saying which came first the cnicken or the egg. •-:,_'here is much good in both high and low potencies. I could cite several cases both acute and chronic cases where a higL: potency failed and a low potency cleared up the symptoms. Conversely I have used a low potency which failed to relieve, but because the sym~toms seemed so nearly matched I tried a high potency with amazing relief of all symptoms. A scientific answer to this problem remains for future research to unravel. ·l1here are many theories afloat which are no better than my own opinion be­ cause of the lack of evidence to support them. D.- But what I am saying is that if a man has a mechanical problem, Neiswander a fracture or something like this, then ••• ? N.- If a man has a fracture he has to be treated by an orthopedic surgeon. '1:here is nt::ver a q_uestion of this. If he has a hernia, hu should be operated on. il1hcse are mechanical things, and this is only sensible. J.- Yes, this is what I was getting at. Let me ask you. How do you feel about antibiotics? Do you use them? 1.- I'm not averse to using antibiotics once in awhile in oases where it becomes necessary. l've rarely had any failures in the homeopathic remedies with any acute illness. A person gets well, much quicker, much easier, much simpler with the homeopathic remedies than he will with any anti biotic. .2ut if l feel that it is necessary to give an antibiotic, I do. I feel no conflict within myself. D.- dight. What I was driving at in effect is--do you consider that homeopathy deals more with internal medicine than with certain of the specialities. In other words, you accept in your practice a good part of what an orthodox physician uses and accepts, but I would assume also that wherever you feel homeopathic remedies will be more effective than more orthodox remedies, then you would use them. 1\.- Yes. I seldom need any antibiotics at all. I certainly would never give a patient a shot of penicillin for a cold, which is a common practice here and everywhere else in the co.Jntry. I1his is foolish as far as my feelin[s are concerned • .-intihistamincs, I don't use at all, because I don't think it is necessary. I like remedies that I l{now, that I can give after I have inquired of their symptoms and which are much Neiswander 6 more effective, much quicker, and I don't have a chance of falling asleep at the wheel on the freeway. 1.'here are no side effects from homeopathic remedies. J. Could you explain why you think the homcopat~ic remedies have been more effective--or is it a matter of experience in administration'? 0.- ~he effectiveness of the remedy depends u~on the doctor's breadth of :neaical knowledge, his judgment and his ability to see reciprocal relationships between patients and homeo­ pathic provings. ~he doctor must be willing to dig into this philosophy, tc study it, to understand what are the basic. principles. He must learn to differentiate the relative value of symptoms he sees as fairly and as completely as possible, and tc10se which the p:1.tier-1t tells him. He needs to study the patient and to study the repertory and know what the remedies can do. If he can do these things--tbis ta}:es time--in our modern hi£h speed society most of the doctors are not willing to do this, they can't afford it. You can't see a hun:1red patients a day doing this kind of work. It is ~bsolutely im­ possible. 6ut l don't need to see my patients so often; I see my patients on the average of once a month. 2ven in acute things, I can take care of my things in between with telephone calls. You get an ordinary patient with an acute high fever, you have to see him every day, give him penicillin, or some­ thing of this nature. I see them once, I give them the remedies, and they call back the next day, or the following day, and they are usually better. Neiswander 7 D.- Ahat do you attribute this to? Can you explain why this is the case? a, 1" . - The homeo-::-,athic remedy acts like a key in"lock. You depend on the quality of a medicine not on the quantity given. ·ihe question is not the usual 11 how much 11 to give, but 11 How similar 11 to the sickness. I'm willini: to spend the time to study the patient, to study the remedies, and to get a remedy which matches their symptoms well enou~;h so that this person will recover. Practically always, in acute cases, this is easy to handle. You can take care of a big volume of patients and ouly see t r1em once ~,.n awhile. Homeorathic medicines tend to act for days, weeks or even months in some instances with only one dose. D.- What you are saying is that you are dealing with patients that you know well, and that you have already examined care­ fully and have their history. ~-- Obviously. When I have a patient coming in for the first time, I ask him to sit down and write out a history that may have 20 to JO pages in it, before he comes in for his next appointment. 'l'his is up to him. If the person has enough motivation to do this, I am willin&-' to acce;,:t bl.mas a new patient. I'd rather have chronic patients, not acutely ill, and be able to follow their progr&ss on a long term basis. I can take care of acute problems in 2. short time on the telephone, such as 2cutc bellyaches, acute headaches, acute sore throats. These problems are usually easy to solve by a telephone call Neiswander 8 D.- One of the complaints that have been made against homeopaths is that their treatment has never been clinically tested. Do you feel that this is the case? I might say that in talking ? with some of the others, Dr. weaver and Dr. Baker,-· there was some disagreement. N.- well, I think clinical testing is a question, of course. Clinical testing, by whose definition. Clinical testing must be on a basis of Koch's h~rpothesis. If you accept this, and only this, as Koch's pypothesis, and not go to the extent that they do in orthodox thinking, which insists you've got to get the virus or the bacteria. and go back and produce the same thing. If you can take this, as you picture it as a set of symptoms, and if you can show Koch 1 s hypothesis 3applies ab­ solutely, here as well as anywhere else, then this is one of the basic things in orthodox medicine, the germ theory. We know now that the germ theory doesn't always hold. Following Pasteur and Koch's work, the germ theory was considered the beginning and the end of all illness, there was nothing in between. Everything was caused by a germ, a bacteria, and if they didn't know what it was, it was a virus. Of course they are still trying to do this, and we can't do it. I'm very familiar with a lot of the original work that is being done now in virology right here in Los Angeles. I know some of the good basic research men here, and it is amazing what kind of statements they make sometimes with regard to their studies in various diseases. ,'1hy they don't know the answers at all, but the hypothesis which was set up a long time ago by Koch, Neiswander 9 nobody can quarrel with even now. 0.- This would apply primarily to a specific communicable disease? N.- No. As an example in psychiatry I would accept the basic con­ cept that therapy for some specific types of psychosis is shock therapy~-~•, electric, insulin, fever. If you give some people who are not psychotic this same or equivalent therapy they may become psychotic. ·11he shock may come from a massive sudden thing, as with LSD, so that as they say, they "blow their minds. 11 ,-Jell, perhaps some day we may find that LSD is a cood curative remedy for the acute psychotic patient. Dr. Cohn and Dr. Underliter at UCLA are daing work on this. ':Vheir work fits well into the homeopathic philosophy. Yes, but I do not think, as far as I know, that there has been a systematic effort to take a large 3:roup of patient! a relatively large group in which there was considerable agree­ ment as to diagnosis--i1hether it be a lobar pneumonia or some­ thing else--then take a group of orthodox physicians and a group of homeopathic physicians, and ••• But we can't abide by ezactl~, the same rules, tbis is what I'm trying to say. O.K., we'll take a case of lobar pneu­ monia. Orthodox medicine says that they can cure this case of lobar pneumonia with terramycin, maybe with penicillin, or whatever. Now the same thing with homeopathlc principles. vie take a person with this set of symptoms--and y'"1u take a hun­ dred people with these same set of s~ mptoms--the same remedy 1 will care for this same set of symptoms, no matter how many people you give it to. It is the same set of symptoms, with ~r. Neiswander 10 the same relative value. but you are basing it on a different premise. 0. - Yes, but what you are saying- is thet all lobar r:neumonia oases may not necesserily have the same symptoms. ~-- No, they won't have, and they don't have. Lobar pneumonia in 100 different people may have a hundred different set of symp­ toms, and so it may take ten different remedies. If you could have 100 people with the same set of symptoms, whether they have lobar pneumonia or whether they have athlete's foot, the same remedy will cure them. ·l his ls a different kind of medi­ 1 cine entirely and so you have tri lo•)k at it in a different way and this is why the orthodox way of provlng, or of setting Uf an experiment just can't be done. J.- Cn the other hand, it seems to me th8t it might be possible to do it simply on a basis of ••• i~. - I th ink a double-bl ind study could and should be done if pr in­ c iples of homeopathy were followed. I think you could prove it if ysu did it on the basis cf a set of symptoms, with the remedies and the procedures. If it could be desip;ned with this principle in mind so that a group of peonle with an A set of symptoms, you would be darn sure that this was a true set of symptoms, that they weren't just fibbing to you, be­ cause this is something that at times is pretty easy to do, and tte interviewer has to be sure that the nerson is tellina ~ ~ the truth. D.- itJell, I would think that it :night be possible, however, in a larfe clinical situation, in which the orthodox physicians might .Jr. neiswa.nder 11 say, 11 ;ell, here we have fifty or one hundred cases of lobar ~•• pneumonia over a period of twc or three months, and we assign so many of these to orttodo~~ pLysici3.ns, 8.nd so many to homeo­ pathic physicians, and deal strictly in terms of the results-­ which seems to me is the most import3nt point. I would ~uite 3gree with yO'J.. that in our emphasis upon re search and testing, we sometimes overlook the obvious, i.~., does it really work? I think the homeop0ths have survived pri~arily because they have been successful. Homeopathy does worl{ in many cases. I'rr aware that part of the proble·T1 is th2t orthodox medicine bas simply disregarded homeopathy, which may explain why this sort testin[ has not been done. N. - t-'.. nd of course the most effective method of killing anything is to bel~ttle. This has been done over the last fifty years. D.- Of course, orthodox ~nedicine itself proclaims that it is dealing with patients not diseases, this 1s the Hippocratic thesis. 1.- I'm aware of that. J.- .out d o you fee 1 th E. t t Le ;y- r' ea11 y do that? 1..- Some de very well. Some inte!'nists that l l{now are excellent at tbis and they do a beautiful job. i3ut the l".1ay medicine is practiced today in the large clinics such as Kaiser Perman­ ente and ~ioos Loos medicine becomes a "::_ind of screening ef feet. It is accepted as goad practice. ~he ~erssn is treated in fragments and goes fram one derartment to ~nother department. Seldom c:rne s '.)ne doc tor see tt-~e patient as s. total entity. They could cut their work load and number of return visits if 12 they usEd the homeop~thic tot~lity concepts in their patient care. i):3. iser s a bEautiful screeni~g clinic where the .,v have --~oesn't ,-:ta.i:e aDy se:-nse and it is ccmsiderEd :iuality care like yo~ give an automooile and its parts. You 8ay have twenty Jocto~•-s in c:2_ c:;rour:, vre have the:t~ here s.s wel2 ss in e.ny other city, and if this doctor ~ants t~ tlke two ~onths v~cation his ~atients do~•t really miss him too much. lhey really don't expect to see the same doctor, and ~robably get the S:,t11e results with one as v\lith the other. n.nd honestly, most :nedication is ,i:iven ty a DLti.~se, or by somebody else ir: the clinic. Many times the doctor doesn't see the patient at all. 'i.' h i s I t n o :J •1 ~.- Cf course, part of tte problE~ lies with specializaticn itself. It h~s cre2ted ••. , . ~uch too much Jepartment3li~atlon. A person :oes ln to see a urologist, and the ur □ lo3ist never wo~ld know that he had he saw it lying on the table. I ~now some of these doctors very well, and I kid them a little every once in ~while about it. A dermatcloiist doesn't know what an acute tonsil looks like, and probably wouldn't even care. J.- One of tbe--and I'm acting in a sense as the Devil's Advocate-­ because I'm curious to get yGur reaction ••• "'. - Good. 0r. l\eiswancier lJ j. - Eomeop~ths tave been criticized on the zrounds th3t they h2ne relied to a lerge extent upon their own rersor:al exps-r- lences with patients. In other words, the ty;e cf medicine you _:-,ract ice "':light not be as irnport2nt as the f3ct that you talz:e a person2l interest in the patient, which is a :naj')r factor, l think, in obtaining a cure. i1o _:;_uestion of this. -· lt h&s been ar::,ued th,,t the homeopeth is successful, not necess_rlly because of the basic principles involved in his practice, but because of his personal concern and the fact that he is well trained as a ;hysician. In other words, he has a good solid medical traini~g j he has, by virtue of his homeopathic interests, a concern with the individual and the individual's reaction to drugs, wh~ch 1 think is impor­ tant. I was wondering if you feel that there mirht be truth in this state~ent. 1 - In some thinzs, ~f course, this is imporl:iant. 'i'his is why some in :;ernis ts are successful and other aren't. Some in- ternists do a wonderful job for th is VE :-:-y same reason. And they don't give any medicine at s.21--a]..ot of these fellmvs. Now why are psychiatrists successful? A good psychiatrist is concerned about his patient. He will go all the way with his patient. rhis is the only thing be bas to offer. 1 And maybe somebody's remedies are only--maybe they don't have any effect-­ but they sh ow that the doctor is concerned for his patient, and this in itself is important. I know that some remedies work very well. For example, I had a kidney stone--this is a ~ersohal example--I went to see the urologist and the urologist Jr. Neiswander 14 passed a catheter. He said that if the stone didn't pass in 24 hours he's had to take out niy h:idney. 1 took some calcarea carbonate and ny stone was passed--and I've never had any trouble 1 since. Maybe it wasn't the stone--my kidneys were i-,uge, I saw the :X.-ray--and perhaps it was my fault for nDt tak'.Lng good care of myself. l don't -;~now if this is really what you asked me for ••• ;.- ~ell, let me pursue this a little further. In the nineteenth century, orthodox medicine went in for polypharmacy and ex­ cessive drug administration. Homeopathy came along, and it is my personal belief which I think 1 can substantiate, that homeopathy had a very salutary effect upon American medicine. There is no doubt that the homeopaths' success helped to moder­ ate .A.merican medical practice. The homeopaths by following the high dilution principle were accused of practicing alsost therapeutic nihilism. In other words, their dilutions were so great that the amount of drugs they administered were so negligible as to have practically no effect. What they were doing was to leave the cure to nature. 11his wg_s the argument of the orthodox physician. J__'m aware cJf that. 'l'his argument about the minuteness of the dose has no place in criticizin3 homeopathy. ~he field of ultra--molccular mic:ro biolozy has shown rnacy, many times the "!..,..,, ---· f infinitesimal amounts of a substance needed to trigger reac­ tions at the molecular and nuclear level. In reading their reports JOU are amazed how often they state iodine to the 10th power 15th was used. Consider the minute amount of trace .Jr. Neisws.nder 15 minerals needed by the body. Yet each is essential for the body to maintain good health. Now that the medical profession itself has become more success­ ful, and has evolved an effective rationale of its own is there a need for homeopathy? Yes, there is a much ~reater need fGr borne op2thic therapeutics in regular medicine today than before. r:I.1he need for home ope thy will become --~reeter as the drug ._, induced illnesses become worse. The iatrogenic problem will not be solved by the present rationale. ~heir problem is compounded when two different specialists are tre3ting a patient, and they find that the two separate medicines acting to(2:ether have a dangerous syner­ gistic effect. The government needs homeopathy to cut the financial costs of the Eedicare and welfare programs. If homeopathic medicines were used their manufacturing costs are so small in comparison that the government would be able to include other much needed health care pro§:7'ams with the money saved. It may see1n para­ doxical but the low cost of manufacturin2 our remedies has been a big stumbling block to get large drug fir1ns to market them. T: ere ls no big profit, and consectuently there is 1 ::--10 big advertising budget, and no detail men to leave samples. Eomeor,athic samples are tbe same as _50 to 100 years ?r·o when they were proven. Outside of surgery, the orthodox medical profession have been most successf1-,"tl when they followed the principles of homeopathy. The whole area of im~unization ls an exact application of the prlneiple of lilce preventing like. i'he person is given a si'Yl- Dr. Neiswander 16 lar substance that produces the disease. 'l'his is seen in f'.Jlio, tetanus, and s:nallpox, etc., immunizations. Now they are working on a new spirochete for preventing syphilis that has been found to protect the natives in a South American country. It is something lil{e Jenner's coxpox in place of s:T1a1lpax idea •. The second area where regular medicine has been successful is in the field of allergy. A~ain they have followed the prin­ ciple of similars and they have been reasonably successful, by usinf: aJ.lergens made of substances to which the ;,erson is allergic. 'l'her use small dilutions of this material and inject it over a period of time. A third area is mental health and psychiatry. Hahnemann was among the first to advocate the humane and ['.:entle treatment of those persons with mental disorders. he also 2:ives top priority to the mental symptoms of the p.c':ltient no matter what name you wish to call the disease. Over the years I have found that the more I give great consideration to the mental and emo­ tional condition of my patient the better he responds to the remedies in shorter time. Medicine has advanced best where it has followed homeopathic principles. Yes, l t\-ink yo,; arc right that t conce;t of imm~nization is •.• .~nd they are lookin for viI'USE's for cancer, bees.use if they can find 2. virus th.::::t causes ':'L particular l:{mphosarcoma or otr:er 5iseases, t~ey think they can modify the virus and use small a.-:o:Jnts ~,nd effect a cure. .l.'he treatment 0f c2.nccr is also followin~ tte same lines--the law of slmilars. You know very Dr. Neiswander 17 well what radiation does, fro7 cobalt or from ~-ray or from radiation. In tr1e ald days peo·ple Jost their hands end tr-::eir arms fro~ cancer--but they are using cobalt new in treatlng cancers--i t I s the s:.::me pr incl pl<:: c:actly--there is no :J..._U3rrel there--it 1 s exactly the same prlnci;le. These are the two areas vJbere tt1eJ have been :::ost successful. In tbc use of antibiotics they are not successful. l don't care what one says--t~·:eJ are ;1ct successful. i.~•::'nicillin c~rn e out in 1946-­ 1 everybo:ly said that '.'J')Uld Gu.re everything--it dld prE::tty near wlpe out all the V.LJ. le our wtole country. Now gonorrhea flourishes luxuriously in the penicillin, then they used a terramycin for 2.while, :::;.nd nsw terramycin doesr;' t combat it-­ has very little value for gDnorrhea. rwu they have a nen one-- vibro~ycin. ~bey will try this for awhile and this will fail, too. ihere isn't an antibiotic that has been developed or ever will be d8veloped whiah these bacteria wilJ. not eventually ievelop a resistant strain. I don't think these have been succes::.;f_:.l--thcy 1 ve been only te::1porary stopgaps. I'he main reason for their fallure is that their use is not predicated on a sound principle • .✓• Gne cciulcl :J.r gue, c f course, that it he: s really been the abuse 1 of antibiotics by the surgeons ••• L. - ·.Che surgeons now-..:.the comrnong practice of surgeons after sur­ gery in many hospitals, here, and I a:11 sure probably all over the country, is to take the four newest antibiotics and fill them with dusting powder and drop t,:em in the surgical wound, and as a result of this we are finding resistent staphylococci Dr. Neiswander 18 and other bacteria zrowing in the surgeries in the hospitals. D.- I know this, but here again, ycu see, I think orie mi[:ht say that it has been the abuse of the antib1ot1oa; in other words, if the antibiotics had been used with discretion presumably this situation might not have arisen. This is hypothetical, I agree. i\.- ·,ve are talkin[ hypotheses, so O.h., this is a hypothesis on the other side. D.- Yes. ·I1he orthodox profession, I think, has been guilty cer­ tainly of act·,;inistering these thinrs wholesale, and by creating some of these problems--whether some 0f these things would have happened anyway is ••• i\ 1 • - Now tr1ey are using ampicillin on everything that comes in. It won't be very many months or years until ampicillin is useless. This P-50 was developed by Bristol of London, and in the beginninf: this was another one of those answers to everything--the new synthetic penicillin--but it won't be long until this will be a worthless drug. ~).- Of course the history cf medicine is replete with these pana- ceas. l\ . - Of course. Salvarsan came out way back in--.50 years ago ••• 0.- 1908-1909. l\. - Some thine::; like that. It cured everything--they used it for everything. J. - And calomel in the 19th century was the cure-all for every­ thing--::iuinine had its day--ginseng and a whole batch of them. Yes, I think •.• 0r. Neiswander 19 i.- ~his is not true of homeopathic remedies, though. Lots of remedies ~ere proven and the only ~bing thst has ever been done has been to add to the proof, ?nd what they found in tbe beginning ti:ay b::.'ct 100 years as:o is st ·. 2.1 true. 1 the remedies haven't changed, and the symptom~ that they will cure or projuce are still exactly the same as they were many have the same ecolozv.~Jv 0 .- In prescribin[, do you prescribe lare:ely homeJpathic remedies, or do you use all types? h.- I generally prescribe homeopat ically. I do use other drugs when indicated, but not very often. D.- You belong to the .American Institute of Hom;:op2thy, do you DOt? 0 I am editor of the American lnsti tute of 1-:0ffii• apathy. I was chairman of the board of trustees, past r)resident, member of the board of trustees for three years--1 am also past president of the California State Eomeopathic 3ociety, and the Los hn2;eles County Eomeopathic So~iety. 0.- I understand there was some controversy between the Interna­ tional Hahnemannian Association and the ••• ~.- Years ago there was a lot of controversy. International ~ah­ nemannian Association were the doctors essentially wto pre­ scribed pure homeop~thic treatment. lhe American Institute people yesi.rs ,9~~,o were graduates of schools which had homeo­ ·::=-athy s.s an elective course. I,.lost of these doctors w'ho be­ longed to the ,.'\.merican Institute TtJere not practicing homeopaths. Dr. Neiswander 20 Ibis was really where ti:e rroblem caIT'e, because you. go back and you get a whole lot of old issues of the AIH journal. lhere was very little in there about homeopathy at all in their meetings. rhey had bi~ meetings--they had two or three thousand at t,·;eir n:'::tional meetings, but this was just a­ nother A.h.A. meeting ln that, by habit, you would fO to the Homeopathic or you would go to the A.~.A. meetlnc, because it wc,s the ider.tical same kir.d of meeting. I can go to the and the C.N.A. 4 As I am chairman of a com,,ii ttee of the -:.:. 1'1.ii.. rlght now, so I have no qu2.rrel with anybody. You made the point that you had kept out of the struggle be­ ti•-ieen the r>ure homeopaths and the mongrels, which I think was one of the issues in which you sou~iht to take a middle of the wound road. I gather frc,m your practice that you are essen­ tially a nomeopathic physician, but that you h2.ve somewhat of a pragmstic approach. i keep my eyes open. ~ do what l ttink is best. Pragmatic, ,:ell, I should say empirical in the sense that you ••• Not empirical either, I don't think. I ho~e. I hoe ~'m not empirical • .,ell, I c:.G us .i_nc t:· is for tr:c ;•rnrd--in th2.t successful, and if you see a treatment used witt success, then you accept it regardless of whether it ••. Y,::,s, i do. :;_ object to a ::_uaI·rel with a name. 'l1he name is nothinc.:;. ,Jhen peODle demand c::i dia.;::.nosis from :7e, I telJ them, n ,foy do you want a fence built aroun::i t~is health proble;1, of yours'?n .1.1 he same t: inkini applies to orthodox medicine, ~r. Neiswander 21 bomeopa,thic :Jedicine, or an~,r otl":er l:ind of medicine. ;Jhy build a fence around it? i t~ink this is the bigicst ~istake that a 11 weci icine be?. s done to buil fences around t ·t~ ln§:_· s, be­ CE:)use then ~•.Jhen you rut a fence ero\..nS. it you c::~n•t see beyond that fence, and you can't see what is gains on in other areas of medical concern. J. - This would not deny, say, the _rinciple of disease enti ty--in other words, as a homeopath now you ~ight not tre~t all the measles cases sssu;11ing ,you get some more--you would ndt treat them all alike since they are individual cases, but you would still recogni:ze that there is a s~~.ecific p.c:thor_en in- volved in tr.is disor•..i er. Let us say that I recognize that certain rathofens may be present when a tiven disease is so diagnosed. l also recog- nize th2.t the same pathogens may be .,resent in many pe·:--.ple without any si~ns of the particular organism causing Sifns of illness in that person. ?or ezam~le tuberculosis, measles, ~olio, ani a host of other illnesses. Conversely there have been cases where all the classical symptoms of a disease are present yet all the laboratory findin~s showed no sisns of the virus, or bacteria. l have seen this in the contagious disease ucit at the :I:.ios An§._·eles Gounty hospital meny times ~,1hile attend­ 1 ing their refular ward rounds each week. ihe most lmportsnt factor ta me is the symptoms that the patients preaent. You can treat them best by evaluatin~ the objective S:fCD)toms yoLA fin-=l 'J..pon examination, plus the subjec- tive sympt □ Lls they tell yo~ about themselves and tteir condi­ tion as they see it. I feel my first responsibility is to .r. 1,eiswander 22 ht:l the :··2itient, '.:,x1d not tn any cne system c-.f medicine . .1. use tr'1e treatrLcnt whicL in m;:;- ju; nt wil1 be ~ost curative. l ;nulJ not let ~eaicsl .0 1 cnces • r~D tient care • bec~us2 his pa~ients died. I '~ther you would net su~scribc I believe th~t all of medicine is tte ~erit_~e of all .ioe,tors • .::ince v,e c:J.re the ~,1edical hc·irs, J. feel doctor•s s:o.1ld know the extent and limit2ti~ns T .l. woJlJ ~ot c~unsel a patient to continue on homeo thic treat- I slso feel th2t psychia- trL,ts, internL3ts, ar:id crti10peciic doctors 1.·vould be able to dischar~e ore of their p tients if 1n addition tc their specialized medical trainl □. they h~d tbe ~· llosophy and k~owlcdle of usint homeop~thic medicines. You also answered the :::iuestion that I wss going to raise ,:i th you. I c':.ather y-ou are a member of the Galifornia I'-ledice.l Assoc- iation, and your relations with the profession at larze are go0d. I mean you have run into no problems over the fact that you do 1: . - .~,bsolutely r:ot. As p1"ogram chairman of '.)ne Section of the :J- C.h.8. for 1969,~oesn't sound like I have had much trouble. I .Or. Neiswander 23 am also a member of the Los Anteles Co~nty hedical Association. I am also on the hospital stsffs in itlhambra, San U·abriel, 2,nd l1ionterey Pa1 k.1 for several years I was on the executive com­ mittee of the Academy of eneral Practice, and I have been a member of the ncademy since it started. I do know that homeo sthy has in a sense lost a certain amount of ststus with orthodox medicine, and I know there hss been ln some states--in some areas there have been problems in that respect. t. - If a. doctor :-na.l-<.:e s a gre:; t big issue out of home o a thy, then he is building his own fences. It is the individual doctor who makes these problems. This in turn makes the inherent good in homeopathic therapeutics 8idunderstood. It isn't us inf.: a p o s it iv e me d i ca1 out 1 o o k • --.c ~: is is the same a s in a ny-thint;, vJhether it is medical, o:r 8.nyt t·:ing else. ~t.Jrien Dr. Hans Gra~ in 1825 came to ~ew York, and ;ave homeopathy its st2.rt, be was a hi:_~hly trained surgeon :..::_nd physician from the best i•~uropean medical sc~1 ools. l·ie went about his doctoring with professional 2-raciousness. 1--iis results gained the atten­ tion of others, and it wasn•~ long until they were rracticing homeopathy. 1ot all doctors, but the more discernin~ ones added the remedies to their repertoire. ~r. Hering who was more a£.·gressive, and equally ·well trained pLysician advanced homeo­ patl1y by his voluminous writing, and his medical teac~1inr· at Allentown. lt 1s too bad he could not have been a bit more flexible and not insisted on teac~ing in the German lanruase. It made for disa2reements within and without the school. If Or . Hering: had been b le s s e d with the vision to L o wit ~1 his .Jr. 1~eisv,.rander 24 fine medica~- knm'1led,~_e I feel ths.t Allentown cou.ld have become another Johns Eopl(ins Vie•:~ical Cent(::'r with rese9.rcb, medical education all oriented on ~omeopathic concepts in the brOi:cd sense. and the ortb od ox hysicians? there are in Salifornia? ~-- ~o. At the last state medical ~eeting in May there were about 2 5 wt o cs me t D t l1 e meet in.~ . 0 f co ur s e there a re old timers that I don't know. Accordinz t0 Er. ~eil Cr2ig, the president of Hylcmds Homeopathic l ;anufa.cturing 2harmacy, he 1 hss a mallinl list of 1000 doctors. A lot of doctors are us inc re rn e d le s th~.:: t w i 11 not mit this beJond tLe ple.ce where tc:ey buy their medicines. i':r. Cre.ic:~ Gells a lot of tbese medicines to laymen and doctors in bis Los An~eles stor'e. Ee has a flourisl.ing business. l 1 here are probably 150 drug stores that stock his Hylands Homeopathic Products in southern California. 0. - Yes, this illustra t0s a ·::::,oint tbe.t fre 1_uently people wi 11 do thinbs providing you don't label it. ~hey may like what it does, but not the label itself. ~.- Mr. Murphy from Lutyies Pharmaceuticals spoke at the American Institute of Homeopathy Convention last June and said when he bought out the firm, he was goini; to throw out tbe homeoLiatbic medicines, because he was not familiar with them. Ee f if!ured '.....-1 they were outmoded, and a capital loss. Instead he was sur- .Jr. l\ie i swander 2.5 prised to find out tLe number of rn2il orders th?t were cominE; in all the time for these medicines. So he has updated them, ..c,,o and,diivinf tt~em a real srotlir:ht in his phs.rmaceuticals. He zets requests from manj orthodox doctors, dentists, and laymen all the time. u.- 1I1 hen California has 1Jore bomeo·,>-Jthic )re ct ice than probably 2~ny other s ta. te. ~.- Yes, and no. I think ~ew York state, and Pennsylvania, have a gcod ly number of home ope tbs pr2ct icin{~-. 'j_·here are rr:ore ct oc­ t ors uslng the remedies, but don't want to be called a homea­ path. i'hey are afraid of the term because of the way the tt-ing has been handled in a derosatory way. ~hey are ashamed of tben1selves for ;wacticing homeopathy. l'hey lo~·jk upon it as a second best medicine, and of course t~is is all wrong, because homeopathy is a part of the best that is available in all medi- cine. u.- ~hat do you ascribe this to? 1\.- ~he results of the Flexner report back in 1909. Abraham Flexner set up standards 3dopted by the A.½.A. for all colle8es to adhere to for accreditation. ~here was a definite need for all colleges to up~rade their curric~lum so that there would be so~e minimum standards of what a doctor s~ould know when he ~raduaLed. A medical def_ree freim some colleges at that time were a farce. Standarids in medical scl·;ools i,rere in a de.loracle state. Unfortuns.tely the ~1omE·opaths were riding (t.. the crest ofApopularity Wdve, and because the purist homeopaths had control of the teaching institutions. They could see no :Jr. 1'~eiswander 26 need to change their 3uthoritarian mf::tbods to include more anatomy, pLysiology, and patholo:_;y in their homeopstbic medi­ cal sci:ools. Ho:neop-Scthy was flourishing, why chan?e? No one see:ned to realize that the people who ha.1j made bomeops.thy irest in the Lnited States ha6 been doctors ho had received excellent r:1edical trainin;~ such :.::_s 1Joctors Constantine hering, pathology in dnother medical school for 15 years before he be­ came converted to Lomeop2.tbic tc· inl(in~,. 1 Yet the r~omeopathic schools v.J'.~ich ~·Jere est8.blished did n0t measure up m the fine standsrds tha. t their founders had had. l\e 1;,1 ~leaders t1-r itb the same solid basic science background had not been trained to carry on. 1.:Jlowly because the scl1ools we:r>e r:ot ur:E:raded, they were not rec~~mended for students ts attend. Ehe better stu- { dents iJ2.nted to/attend the best medical school he coulc:.. So the homeop2ths had to take the second best students. ~hese in turn became the teachers of the next generatioc, and the v lei ous circle of inadequate medical background and substand­ ard teaching facilities caused homeopsthy to lose its strong position. I don't think it was necessary for the homeop8ths to Belo- ,t the i,-'lexner ste.nd:1rds which ~'\Jere basic minimum stan- dards for s. Gh.:dical cur:ciculum. ·he hom-:::-opaths at that time COLA.Li (~ave set up t~,eir o~-Jn hL~b sta.ndar,Js and enforced them. At that time they had their own medical examining boards in many states plus the nmericaG lnstitutc and the lnternaticnal hahnemannian to have wielded their power to have enforced hiEher standards. ;1.'hey also needed to eue:ment t(:eir research 27 into the acti~n of the remeJies. ~he purists homeopsths 10,,ked ur:on tl-iis research as almost heresy to Juestion the Cld ~'·~ester's vrnr~{. 'l'his attitude W3.s present even Nhen I took I my six ~•Jeets postcraduate course. lhe only ::::--esc:..?.I'CtJ t':~ey en- l·1ahneman ha:.1 s t or t be c 1 o ck of ch an f e • .w v en the A • r . A• could 1'".i ' t s t o1) Me d i - ihen these self-~ade and self-lmro~ed fEnces are built witirnut due concern for the peoplE, i1ays will always be found to open up news gates or to circumvent the obstruction caused by the fence • .J. - On the otte:r h3nd, home op_;,_ th ic r:ract ice itself, I t:~i r:k, ob- biously h2s been fairly successful, and wouldn't this strengthen homeopathy just as in the 19th century it Eained a Lrec,t deal of stren.::th primarily because it;s practi tion2:,,.s ~vere far more successful than the orthodox ones? lf t·Je cac 2sr.m•.11€ thS:_t: this tl-:ink it should hav~ survived f2r better than it has. Yo~ see my im1n ession in tall~lnL- in the ~::.~3.st, certr,inly from the men 1:i-rn 1 ha.ve taj_:,ced to there, is that tl·.1ere is little 1uestion that fhe~e is tlO 1uestion about it. Here, t~o. And yet, actually and some in 3outh America and Nexico. Mexico City has a Eomeop3t~ic School, and they are pathic ~edicines cost little and do much. India has several s ch '.:' o1 s and a very active gr o ip • .Jr. l"~e iswander 28 Yes, the question again is can you explain wby tr1is is the case. iNhy is it decl inin :·'? ~:Ly is it they have not been uccessful in appealin[ to the youn[er men? Cf c i:mr s e the re i s no mE d i cs l s c r~ o o1 n o-v1 i r1 th is c ou n try that their form2,tive years, and if they don't tnow there is such a thin;, and they have no idea of its value there is ~o way to t;ecome f::-1rnili?.r ivitt-:: it, exce~,t in a l2uzhinc ki!'ld cf way. ihey are not willln~ to look into a medical tteory that runs counter to all i::::.'lesent medical thinkin&; unless tl:ey have seen the benefits that ;atients get. And th2t it is e~ually re- ~unerative 2s other specialties. rind they are probably fear- f u1 . In f s. ct , vJ h i 1 e ~ ws. s in me a i cs. l s ch o o1 , I re a 11 y L-2 ad n ' t tbin[s ezcept tLe ort~-~0dox aJ.1.i;::hani1a.mides, and of course there vJa sn 1 -'c any pe nic ill in tl2en--2.nd I tl~ 8U[ ht wr:a t in the world would happen if l didn't have the assorted su~phanila­ mides to take care 8f clinio~l patients--of co~rse these new • 1 su 1 pnan1 I •~ amiaes • were curinL every t ning t'~en in 1939-1942. 1 • . .:-<..fter I became involved :/'Jitr~ ::smeopsthy, core f2.riliar witi.'2 it, more expert in it--then I didn't have the worries or feara of what to use. I much prefer to use Lorneopatbic remedies and r:e t it done more :J..Uickly and easily. _Jut wty t be doctors area' t more interested in this? In the first place, it's difficult bhe vJay our repertories are written. It takes a long time to learn, and it takes a lot of patience to study. ihere are some failures, of course. ~hese failures are only because we are human and fallible and need to study patients and remedies .Jr. I·~e iswa.nder 29 better, and for several reasons. ,.Je need more provinL_s of remedies on a large scale with specific standards b2sed on [_:; 00d s c ien t if ic pr ocer3. ure s. The p i·:s.rrnac ie s need to recheck re~edies ~nd test them f~r potency power. You can't possibly see a patient every five minutes and have any success at all. Maybe after you have practiced for fifty years you could see a patient every 15 minut~s--anJ be successful. ~✓-eli, so many of the bomeopE1.tbs came into the field because they had a homeo~athic background ••• .i.hat 1 s right. ;l'hey were taus,·ht this in their rnedica.l schools ••• Or their parents were home,:patbs, or homeo-cathic physicians, and yet somehm\J or other this ,:·resent [enerstion doesn't seem to be interested .•• ~here are a lot of doctors practicing in this country wh0 had fathers who were tomeopaths. I have two cousins whose father$• v-1ere homsop:?tbs and neither one of them have a~ythin§'; to do with it. rhey weren't sold enough themselves, because the homeopathic schools had not kept psce and advanced with new medical technology and ~edical knowledre which had direct ap­ ~1:,lications to homeopathy. They refused to move forward or to see the need to exc~pt in exceptional cases. Homeopathic sctools weren't really good in those days. The reason for the failure: They weren't doing a r:ood en ougn job of teachintt. ~o you thick it may be, too, that to be a homeopathic physician req.uires a certain amount of independence, willins.ness to be say a nonconforsist. l think a good homeopath has to be a psychiatrist, al~ost, or Dr. i~e iswander JO a good internist be fore he can ~e a decent borne opa th. -'i-nd there aren't very many good psychi2trists in this country. I know a lot of 1--;sychi:::,~trists, and l don't thinl<'.: l know nrnre than one or two who are v2ry fODd. And l know a lot of in- ternists, and not very many of them really understgnd this tLing v1ell enou.gh to become 2;ood horneops.tbs. 4-1nd most •.::,f the .)~1ysici.:;.ns wr·10 prc-·.ctice, about a third of the ::-:-ra.duates back at tbe time of this massive study and the closing dot,m of all tbe.~;e schools, were from bomeo:;:i:=:.1tLic :nedical schools. Few of these scb'.)cls that v\Jere ver;/ good, J.nd what good schools they had then the medical training becase more dlluted until they ~·:ere gone. ~ut you see I stlll think there is ••• .Lhere sboul:l be a :)lsce for costs.~r:·,duate educE~tion, some real J,.: l.. '-" good postgr::.1duate educetion. If this were done, and it was financed well enough, and was a different ceneral posture without apolo~ies, and giving strons positive t2ne to this thing. The homeopath is apolofizin?, -- - and he constantly apolo­ gizes, anJ that is absolutely wrong. ~here is GO reason to apologize for practiciag medically on a sound scientific prin­ ciple. ,;eL~, this briDi'S me to another question, and that is what practical step do y0u think could be done to strengthen homeo- pat11y? Let me ash y-ou one other :1uestion before '/✓ e £'Ct into that one--it reminded me I let it go while we were talkin[-- Do ;you bave any i:J.ea of the avera:::~e ag:e of t::1e hc,me opath in c2.1 if ornia? I would a ;rn ume they are lar Le ly older men. ~r. Neiswander 31 r.- ·J.'hat is right. I'm just about the younEest one, I think. I expect the avsrage afe is close to 70. J.- And you were born when? 1\ • - 1914. I'm 54. j). - I would say the averare a e is closer to 70. ' ..I,..,,'/. - granted that we are faced with this situation, you feel that the best hope under the existing ~edical set-up then would be a postgraduate education course? h. - I would like to see some real vi ta1 postgraduate education in connecticn with the very best medical school we could ctet in contact wlth • .J. -- The problem, though, is tbs.t the ideas are all already shaped pretty much through the orthodox training. In other words, the five year course in medicine constitutes a fairly rigid indoctrination. i.l. 1 here is no q_uestion--it' s a ·rigidly structured ~edical training. l\. - I•:aybe this could be in connecti0n with a schoDl 1 ike tbe Uni ver- sity of ~enver which is very stronr in the psychiatric field, or maybe Menninger Clinic, or someplace doing experi □ental re­ search in mental ~problems. \i·hese remedies work :•Jell witb the 11entally il~ person, if the l'.Jhysician is willing to study his patients thoroughly from a homeopathic viewpoint. And if you a p :_~-r oa ch it fr om t t-:; i s point of view , po s s i b 1 y you mi Eth t ... D. - It does seem to me, though, that t11ebr oblem really lies at the medical school level, preliminary training--if, as haJpens, and there is little doubt about it, that homeopathi~ is ~ore or less cast aside as ••• Dr. l\ie i swander 32 ~\.- ..1.jhe name ought to be discarded, I suJpose. If the principles and metijodology of horneope.tby we:!. e reta.ined J... wr:,uld not object 1 to another name being used, because~ feel so many areas of medicine can benefit by ustng h·:;meo1)2, thic therareutics by any name thei choose to call it. I would hate to s(:e the nsme of homc:opat~·1y used as a front arid just practiced as s token, in order to gain funds which has been done in several colleces, including: ~.ahnewann. :•1edical ;~olle2_e in Pbilo_Jelphi,s_. ~'hey want the b~quests and funds, but nothin_s more homeop:::•tbic. 'i'he young medical. students today would consider the n::~me homeo- pathy as just a~other new word. If it were properly intro- duced the philoso)by and princic~·les w·.-uld be studied ~Ln tbe sa~e way as any o~her new medical idea. Whoever introduced the subject should he-ve a broad ,~edical view to shm\J thc::t the therapeutics would adJ both breadth and depth to medicine es­ Jecially in the field of c~ronlc and constitutional Jrescribing. The principle is good whether the name is good or not. -'. - Yes. I am thinkinE in terms of a practical approach. After all, the .'i.merioan Foundat:;ion, aud the .AmeriGan Institute, I think, both supported post 6 raduate courses bu.t t_bey have not been particularly successful. L.- rhat is true. 1 DUt they have go.:d courses, and tr1ey have the best teachers we have, and this is about all you have avail­ able no~. It has not been given the overall publicity to all doctors that is needed year after year to stimulate interest. ~-- I would say this still points up the f2ct that 3lthough they are offerini what you feel is a good course, yet they have at~racted rel8tively few people. ~his is why I was wondering JJ '.Jhether you, "o,.,_rself, felt ti1ere were some nther _po::,i :lbilit,y. 0 I u11-:.erst3.nd sne &pr~ro&ch hss bee11 tc try to develop homEo- lhls will never ocaur. It hasn't even occurred for the Amerl- can ...cademy )f General .i:::ractitioners, smd witl· 0 wl-orn tc,ere ls no ~uestion of therapeutics. ~.- Then, as i said, you feel that the only altern2tlve is to continue with the postgraduate educe.tion. 1. ~ell, I thlnk that Youn~•s idea of the lecturestips that he has probably talhed with you atout has some ;ote~tial . lncidental~y, i didn't talk t~ Jr. Youns ~yself. .1..hc reeson we Lot lnvclvca ~lt~ the tape recorder is th2t tr. hauf~an 2nd left the tape recorJer with him to see Jr. Younr and Dr. Gold- berg, and he interviev-Jei them v:l":ile l was u~., in the nortr:v;est, and tuen he sent tne t:::.pe rec:n·J.er c,n to a1e ic :::;alifornia. :o you. see I badn 1 t had a cc1ance t0 tall{ 1vitl: ~r. YotJDf. I have talked v·Jith Dr. c;;;.ker a.n5 '.-Jeaver and 3tet::enson in hew York, and otbers. I sa.,.1 Dr. Gut ten tag uµ in San Fr:::.nG isco. '& You had ~sntioned Dr. Young 1 s idea? ~.- Yes, l think this has potential. He was suggesting that we contact research people or orthodox people who would be ~ble to give a lecture and would authenticate, possibly, or back up, or give SL.l)port c.,r somethin:,: c.f t~1is nature--so that the ~r. heiswander 34 basic ;rinclple of the like curing like could be exrosed a little better ta the research-minded cornrnunity, some.,Jhere, someho~. Kayb~ plant a seed on this thing someplace so that there wculd be some ~ore basic research done. little. ~r. ~te~enson has done mast of ttis. he coordinated most of it. ~ut tbis is really only the beginnings. .ihen the research work d~nc will be accepted and published in top quality resee.rch mae~azines then other researchers will be willin§:_ to ta.cl-de 0·0her fundamental pr oble:ns. , JO yo_:L f ee 1 t'-oa t i. t . s or t or,~ t,(1e is .. t 1., l·1 ing • t ·ne t -~ 0r. ·-- t e¥ens ;j Ph on has interest in, molecular biol □ EY, for example, whether this is toe approach that s'.~rmld be tahen or that maybe it.ore em­ pha.sis SC"lOvtld be done in clinical work, or ••• "'.,.- Yes, 1 tr,ink ;you have to t-,rove scientifically- somehm·I in the l2boratory--~owever it is done. lhis is, I think, a means of scientific proof. It vrnn' t be d-ne UTOUf)1 the medical .0.- l 2:;c-"tber tbat there is some dise.Ereement as to the efficacy Di+' succussion . amon~ . t ~~e • . . t' nomeo;a ns t'nemseLves, 7 or some 'Jf them, anyway. .Jo yoL-~ bave any p&rticula,r feel irigs on this is sue, or •.• .;.. • I th int: it ha. s pl&yed a part in th is th ing--a very defi n~ te part. ...Jr. on this recently as -t~C r~ls theories Galled the :i.2a_radox of tbe Eicrodose. u Thist of courBe, is what he is cancerned with, and I ~ot the imr.riession that ~)r. uuttentag felt that .ur. Stephenson may be v1EU1(lerir1-"· ;ivfully far afield in tnat. 35 iell, Jr. ~uttentag hasn't produced • □r stimulated students :, t the ur:i vers i ty tied ica: Sch o·· ls where he has taugh_t many..> and he bas had a fine opportxoity to interest resc:·c1rc> peor:le to investigate the value. tie has ~1is problems, but he like- wise h3s an inside teach in.. · place \AJit c·1 tbe Univer si ty, ~;_nd ifiere hE to exert himself in behalf c,f some basic research th2t favored ~omeop~thic ttinking there is great possibilities here. He has funds :::~vaila:_:::,J.e to cv2ri :.:et it started. 3·J I t tiin'k tb:::1 t 3te~\~)S on' s ideas need to be 1 o ·-::,ked at, but need to be ::ilso ~:r,pefJ.lly taken up by some topnotch rese~,rch area in science somewhere. 'I'his is wh9.t our hope is. _;.- In other words, ~ou feel tc1at if ti.1c resesrch could be done by so~ebody -ot associated witj ~0meopathy ••• Some dis_nterested person. It must be done bJ a disinterested ~.- Then actually you would suggest tt2t research at all levels would be advisable, wherever ••• ~v-herever, wl1enever, however. .:--l.nd 1. don't thj_n}: anybody shouli be afraid tc stand u~ to any kind cf research. hnd tte research, I su~pose, should begin with ho~ this, the funda­ mental ~uestion is--Is this effective--or d0es this have any action on a.ctivity? ' ~~ v is t't1e e.c t.1 v 1.. t y-- m_t' If so, vJn ,l.. • OOlff' se 111 these ~-1ig~j potencies there is r.io substance. So is there something in there thJt has action, and if so, what is it? fhere are certainly ways now th2t they can look into this Y~s. Because in ttis 1uestion, I think you have ~ointed up 0r . Ne i '3W 2.nder J6 your rn~~ in~erest in psychi3try--i~ a ain raises ttst real 0 because of tl-:eir interest in ti,e ~Htient, and because tl--:ey ao--I think, there is 2-ittl8 doubt--iD tslkin"t 11.1it't: a1.· of you I have been i2presscd with the fact t~at you have a vital con- tients rat'.:er t 1-:an diseas::s. I t seer., s t 0 me t c1 is the j_Ja t ient. ~inety Jercent af ;our dla:nosis is an what you see and what you hear and \/vhat t:-::ey tel2. you. You don't dia,-c:nose D ;atient's problems. You don•~ decide he h:·s a cor:nary ~ntil you cet a2.~ the symptoills. You have a pretty good idea of what he has and the only thing th~t the electrocardloiram ~oes and the b_ood work does is to cJnfirrn it f~r ;ou. You i,2vc Ii1ade the '..:iia;~nosis, usually, yourself .. ~-. - _jut J0.1 see, thiE brin ;:3 ;ne to the ~oint--1 c:.~'' raisin t' is as a lay~an, as an objective observer--that a good port of the success ,::,f h•:::meopathy may nJt be the '..i;;):: rot,~ncies, or ,:;::e hl;h dllutL:::ns, but it 1r:.2.y be t'ne fsct th3t they do rr:cof;- ... - rill right r:.ow. I [;ave one man who had arthritis S.huja lOM-­ that is ten t'.1ousanJ times diluted om: tc a hundred. Of course, that is beyon•.:S ten thousand times beyond anything. Ibis man hal arthritis where he couldr. 1 t walk, and he just couldn't WdlL at all, and atter this he even _;;layed golf, and he did everything. he ~as about your age. ~hen I gave him 11 huja 611 potency, and he hs.d a flare-up, a horrible flare-up, i.)r. .rJe i sw a nde r 37 snd v\Je sent ·nim JOif. sad be f::<)t 'J..'i i:n~11ediately. On the first remedy he couldn't even walk, and this was an error ~n ~y {)sr·t bec~use yo.~ den I t dare t;~ ch&n 2_·e tr:e -:_--:otencies do:/';nward because many times t~e ~-::-atient w ilJ. ~et worse. I demonstrated this to my sorrm-J v-1it~-. a remedy thE.t he didn't kr:ow anything about at all. He couldn't have possibly because I mailed it to him. I put it in the mail. Of course in the case you were talki about with arthritis, there would be a stron~ ariurnent for a particular therapeu­ tic, in v-iis case a l:ig::ily diluted one. I thin:. this is cer­ tainly one of the thini_s that should be tested. fhuja worl-::ed for this man--it may not t,1ork for artl'::ritis for 1 anybody else, unleGs he hcis the same kind and the same sort of symptoms as t_is man. ~.- It is interestint that a number af tje □ en I hsve tslked to, homeopathic physicians, do feel that they have been very successful, most successful, in treating chronic ailments. }ith chror1ic ailments, ycu ca:} d{:, a lot. c..1.- Of course we still come bs.c~: to tl-:is b:?;_sic ·problem that so far none of t1:-.e )roposa.ls to su~- . .: ort or to maintain nr: meo­ 1 pathy have been tco successful, ani I was wondering w ~t you feel is t'..e fu.ture of homeopathy. :.Jo yDu fee1 t~1et it v.Jill survive? It see~s ta me th~t the evidence would indicate tba,t there is e drnr•m:·Jard trenj in ter~,s of the num1:;ers cf practitioners, increasing seniority, etc. ~h~t is right. It probably won't survive by its present na~c. Not in this country. I think in a country like India Dr. 1,.~e i s;,\1 a·cder 38 or aussia it h3s a go0d chance tc survive and probably to exps.nd. lt is much cl:ca.9er medicine t'.= ~~:rescribe. 1 It costs very little. situ:J.tLm in India from tbe standpoint of bomespathy. Oh, yes. ~~ere are many thousands of physicisns in India. In this country, I don't know though--1 doubt if it will. .,hen you sa;y it will not survive yau are savin~ in effect ti .._,, that it will not survive as an organized medical practice. 3ut wouid you say that principles of homeop~thy .•• You are not goi~[ to destroy that. ;_}.- iJc you V1ink th&.t ort1·-:,oc::ox medicine t•Jil1 adopt them eventus.lly? r:; f c ou :::-i s e , i t ha s , as you po int e d out • .. .... · ·_;_'hey h2.ve. are successful at are tbin2-J3 that follo:v these b::~sic rrinci:)les. And really it is the only thing that has been r_eally successful. . . you are say1n3 is •.• 1.,. - :hat t ~-1e y have adopted are crude--rw ~Lue st ioc about th is, they are crude, but they are effective and ~ost successful, and accepted. J.- .out :·:.,y point is that the princi:r;les of homeopathy ~nay be valid, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they would be accepted by the medical profession. 1ow the ~oint is--do JOU tbi. k that enough of the princirles have been ~ccepted in terms af immunology which you ~entioned, 0nd preventive medi- cine. These principles are sound, but the medical profession :nay arrive at ttem, say 1ore or less, at the bac:~ door, b: discoveries in other areas. In other words, after a11, a good )G.rt of tl·le advances in medicine have come from tbe che~nists, fr om ••• tica.l rcsEarct scientists--not t·::rougb medicine--rrnt thro1.1gb ort~1 od ox ::ed i ci tJ-:: the ph2.:cmscies or tbe pherms.cis-'cs. l\c, absolutely :1ot. And it may come only ln very specialized areas--in other areas--of course, this is what haprened in t~·1e nl-r1t-teenth i~entury. 1he eirttodox medicine used a combination of drugs. Lari._e numbers of people died in the 1918 epidemic of flu. The homeopaths had a very low mortality with their patients. They zave ttem mainly gelsemium, baptisia and a few other remedies. The mor­ tality rate was much lower with tlhe homeopathic treatment. Some of the old journals pive 2.ccurate statistics of compari­ son for this epidemic flu period and it shows up very clearly which method was best. ·._}.- Of course novJ you are makings, f1tate:nent that the homeopaths hie1·e t.,u.ilt_y of doing precisely wr:at you accused the ortnodox physicians of doin~--of treatins ~cross tte board--of taking a particular therapeutic ••• In an epLJ.emic sltuation usually one re:nedy works. .L:-:.is same virus, t.bi s s '::tme s tre.i n of virus, and if it' s s very ~na w~at's t~e character--if you want to kcow what is the most In an acute epidemic, it is p~obably the virus t~2t's producini tte e?ide7ic that is ost important • .ih2.t do you ~):eescribe there? -~Jhs.tever is :T~ost important. It 0r. Neiswander 40 may not be the person. It may be whs.tever else is invDlved. ";Jhen you have a bloody nose ;;rou treat the bloody nose--not whether the person is blande or brunette--and the bloody nose remedy is the re'.nedy that works -;::-:robably better tbar; anything else. It just works arb1ti-ar1ly, wi troeut ever seeing the j)ijtlent, you can probably stop the bloody nose without ever seeing and probably ninet;/ percent of the time, without telling any­ thin5 about t t:e patient. :..J. - In being critical of antibiotics, you are or implying that there are specific homeopathic remedies which are, say, far better than the antibiotics-,;_in other words, just as -=1uinine ••• The difficulty with remedies is that ttey must 6e individualized, and you can't say that this remedy will cure this pneumonia, or this gonorrhea, or t':is whatever you say--and this is where the problem arises. :.Chey say penicillin me.y be used for ttis and thls and this, and I use it, but it doesn't work all the t iuie. J.- Let me ask you one other question about organized homeopathy. How do you feel about laymen's g-roups? Do you think they may be effective and they may possibly enable homeCJpathy to sur­ vive, or at least prolong its existence? ~o y0u think they can create enough demand for homeopathic practitioners to in turn motivate medical schools or some other ac~ency'? ~-- This is good public relatlons--whether it is hdmeop~thic women's lea~ues, _ or anJ-,thin~_ else. It is J·u s t go od pu bl" , ic relations, and certainly y': '.l want it. 1 It is just a plain practical standpoint. No matter what y, ou- are, 1.· 11, you like to Dr. Neiswander 41 have laymen's organiza.tions involved. J. - ·~iight. .1."nen let me go a step furtber and ask, since I talked with l ,r. Arthur Greene:~ow d O yr)U feel a bout lay pr2°cti­ tioners'i Do ycu tbink they have some validity in what they e.re doinr or some of what they are doiDE'? 1 think sometises they make tb Lnrs rnuch more difficult to tre2.t. Once in awhile you ~et a patient who is taking these remedies on their own-- for years, and ttose people are really impossible to do any- thiny for. You just can't do an;thing fer t-em at all because they have taken everything in t~e books. And I had one who was using hypos and s~e wss under lOM 1~-Jotencies and evervthing ti ,...; else, and I just told her~ couldn't do anythinz for ~er. there is nothing that yc,u can do for tt,em--eitber homeopathic, er anyttins else. ~here is everything wronc with them--they Only a few patients ••• .,J.- ,·Jell, would you say that with discretion--after all, a great deal of medicine--even today--is domestic medicine ••• I ask my ~atients to have their remedies. I insist that they bave them, and tbat they b'-~Y the~n and have them at burne, but I also lcsist thet the~1 call me when they are sick, and I tell them what I think they S:'j ouhi have. This is done for free and no charge is made. ages a ~·ood p2_rt of medicine is home medicine--pe o;:·:le a11 have t be ir own ••• 3ure--they have aconite for beginning cold--they have their natrum muir if ttey start sneezing with a cold--they have ar- Dr. :i~e iswander 42 nica if they get hurt, or they have their calandul2 if they [::et sunburned. Sure, tbese thin2:·s. ri1hey don't need to call Instead of taking 2spirin and Viets, a-r:id ether prO)rietary medicines .... :uch prefer to have the~ use the JX and 6X potencies, plus several tinctures for wounds and emergencies. :).- :;:;ow the lay practitioner, of course, is going a little beyond this, and I suppose you would agree that the danrer of the lay practitioner is that be ma-.:- .J nre scribe in cases in which ~ he is not qualified. I i now a r: issiDnary 1 W'.10 went t'.-:; Alaska where no doctor was available. Ee was a good thinker, and observer, and with a hundred rE·medie s he probably did a lot of good. Generally tl-::e 1 ow potencies aren I t going to hurt ar1ybod~/. ·.rake A; aricus (JUS Car GE, t bis would be a very dangerous remedy Ir: some sit- • ua t ions, even t'nougn you say there is not~ins there--this is I a mosti 11otent vital remedy. Some of these remedies you can t~ke one dose ana they may last a lifetime. Dr. J. T. Kent speaks of this in usinz Lachesis on himself. ~ think the homeopaths themselves should set ur a modern medical curriculum, a four-year medical program no matter whether it is included in the regular medical school or otherwise. :rhis concrete pl:=m­ ning would dernonstirate where they would include homeo~·::.=tthic thera~eutics and what yeer of medicine they would have their clinics, aDd how they wculd corr-el.s.te a researcl1 ...nrocram to '-· run con~urrently. ~hat other modern subjects would be included? l feel the riomeo 1')aths need to do some very c . . ,mprehensive and detailed plarn:ing, on a practical workable curriculum. It would 43 ta~e g lot ~f compro~ise to get sue~ a prozra~ on paper but tl:el e is 1 ,,10::. C' 1 to be ~ained tban loE1t. 3everal double blind therapeutic v2l~e. Lhdt Jr. ~uttentag thinks they should do--that there is a need for ade1u9te cliI1ical stuSies--tLst hoc.1eo;::,,, tlly, be feels, has never beec pro~erly tested. tt1is is true, and one is to Dreciselv whv ..L V. V tnis \1:.:0 s bren the case. I don't knrn,,' whether tt.e h:;meor,aths, themselves, can ansvier this :1ue;:;tiun or uhetb:::r ti~e :jnswer is in the medica: profession. ready and c_:o to several places with it, not wit'.-: a h3.nc-dog but, 11 I have tr, is this offer ano. it is .HJ honest, lc,_itin:ate tc-,.i.n ,. ,0uld y0u have a place for it in your re;"'carch?n Lay:.::;e t':,rou 6 t a fcueral grant tlJe funds to do it would be available. I do tI~ink if they 112.d a cur:ciculum oriented on total health from the cradle to the tre.ve in vvhicb homeopathic tl1er2.Jeutios were used for preven­ tion and cure of illnesses, then we would have so~iething to approach other medical schools and discuss. In t be lir•ht '- of new thiniing environmental te2lth will play a~ important role. ).- C)f course, the probleT1 l suspect with the :,:. 1. E. is th2,t it is to a large extent controlled by the orthodox practitioners, Dr. .i.\e is~--;ander 44 and there is little doubt that there is a general suspicion •Jf homeopathy a:110n:::-: tl-:e :t10re orthodox p1.. ~wtitioners and the medical schools in e:.::· nera 1, and i th inl{ the problem would be to convince them. .L . • fhere is no problem here, not right here, but there has teen in other bos1;,:l.t8.ls. You ar·e on tte staff s.nd you can use your own homeopothic re~edy, because you won't be discriminated a- sorry, but v~e don't hc~.ve one • 11 It is that kiGd of underbsnded business. It isn't that they will kick you off the staff-- thdt you cculti fi~ht--but ycu can't f~_,c ht that tte·,r didn't have ~ u a bed, and rusl, right down there and raise holy-J\ed. 'l h2t 1 has ha 1:pened ::.1uite often ln some doctors• )ractices. ~.- hell, I have encountered this in talkint to a number of peo~le ;..n the East thSlt there is in some cases an overt, a-cd in some case s a s u b t le di s c r L-;.;. i na ti on a fains t h ome ops th i c r,,r act it i oner s • 1 think .Or. Esker seemed tc; feel tb~lt he i·~aa no difficulties. I think ~r • .!eaver saio. be r:ad no problems. ~hat is because they have been ttere for years and years and years. Jr. Srnith doesn't have any either, for fifty years, he and his s~n who is there with him don't, but they use only g the one lrnspital.4 If they want t'.--: try to go to another one, they would run into problems. ,_). - I suspect th is is true. .l don't tb ink there is any ques ti cm that discrimination of one sort or another has been applied ;-nedicin,2, bccs:use t::ei r1.ust 1:orotect t:,1eir 8.ccreditation as - ..:.. -· . Jlccnse, li~e they have ln :8liforni3. .Lt,ey have a J.in~ited really sincere and honest sbout it. itey hsv~ the ri;bt to ::r3ctice bec2u3e the~, ho:ve the ri;J t t0 dis nse druE_s. sii:11ply to t:-ie association ucless t>cy ~ere a~tivelv concerned . V and interested in homeopcthy as such. i .- lJo; absolutely not. how t~1is is ·~ nother thin[: to aaa to their stature, you ~now--if this status is the reason they are doinz it • ..J.- ::ne of the reasons 1 suspect tr_at homeo;::aths have run into ,ro­ ble~s is the very fact that their drucs are rel2ti~ely inex- :i;;ensive. It scarcely endears them to the pharmacol □ lical srou~s. .Jr. I.e i swa.tKier '·6 '--i' -'-hat is right. .L'his has alwaJs been true, you kno~,1. \Iay ~Bok ~ven in t~e early 1100's the AJothecaries in the very early days ran r:2-lme,, 3nn :Jut of f,eversl G€r:nan towns, be- 1 :nil1ionaire. he was inter•ested because tr-:e builcLnr:· r,n.:s s_ nice new building with about 40,000 sq. ft. and in t~e center of town, and he was . ettln. a wonderful 11rice for the land. So he went end lool{cd. i·;ere cne of the phar·m8ceutical r ou:s0·s £hey have done it for around 100 years. ,~nd thev were c:l 'Jsln0· tr;eir doors. u - started lo:'1i:lr1," into th i.s, and ~1e stt,dies it a.nJ he became in- terssted, and he is one of tre p:-ime )Ushers nov.1 for hnmeope.thy in the ~- ~- Ee is in ~uro~e, he is in 0. America, he is all over t~e world, and this man is very farward looking--after a:i.l, he has spent his wl,ole life in business and he has re­ bcJilt t'.1is ci-)1pany. Now he says he m:,kes the price of what he ;aid for the business, every year from the medicines he ,sells. lt is a zoc,d net profit . .3o the ph9..rmacists aren't alJ Z<Jing broke. lt think a lot of i t is ::::oor business manat'.e- ment. ~o~ lucrative a~ all, by the standards of LilJy's, or any of these other big companies • ...,;.- It is true ti·!2.t the drugs that are prescribed by the homeopathic Dr. he istvander 4-7 pra8titioners are relatively inexpensive. Very, very cheap. ~o you give your o~n drugs, or do y~u have any problems Hr it in 6 pre s c r i ~~ t i on s , or • • • is ~uite an invest- ment in rr~edi:.;L1es. 1- don't prescribe :?,ny drugs. If tbere is s o iTie low po t e n 8 y , I have the ::_:::,at i e n t s p i ck t '~ e a1 up • .L here i s a pharxa.c~' he re on main street tbs.t has many of them. '1:here are some two or three around in this community, and I have patients who come here from rliverside, and San ~iego, Ventura and •.• ihere are pharmacies in every town. ½est of them carry hylands hrJmeop~:.:thic remedies.· ~-- In other words, there is no proble~ in setting homeopathic dr'u__ s l.n this ~-eneral area. No. Jithin 20 Liles around ~ere there is at least 25 phar­ macies. Eo·,t1ever, they are ;::ostly in the low _) . :'.. and 6:{ poten­ cies wc~ich is tiz.~h enough fcir laymen to use. ~.- It is interestlng that there are so many. I hadn't realized ••• ~,,.- i'hat is right. 1.5 or 20--in this Los i~i.nzeles area--from ,Jan ta .oniGa down here. ,.). - I Luess the t tr1e "'ce""•"'"- .. L in gener3.l discourages tte physicians fram actually ~ivin[ the drugs themselves •.• ~'he ?harmacy ).. ssociation does the discoura['ing. Not the phy­ sicians. One cf their weapons is withdrawal of lucrative ad- vertisir..g in their jou.rnals, and the :-ri.edical ethic concernin[ ~~•s which they remind doctors about. _). - I see. i:as this affected you at all in any vJay or have you felt any of the subtle pressures of ••• over·t. pr3ctice in t~e future. is wRR written into t~e l?w, you tnow, a~out a was fighting this. _). - -'-ight. ho ·1 do y~u feel abo;_ t the -~-meri ca,; j_nsti tute, say, procrams or in their views to~2rd rledicare sr some other le[islation affecting the profession? Lt • .1.'he :,edicare procram. I think t~is ls very important from the standpoint of lJein,_· recosnizea by t':e federt:.➔.l c_overnme~1t. It is ?.nGther let. of 12ste:clisbin.- the legality of practicing--~nd if you are accepted as a part of "Ghe le l armaJJe:atarium cy tte federal overnment t'nis It leaves 0ne threat-- ty makin~ it i~le_al • .:::uent les.:L,;ls.tion on this or·der may telp 1:inm::::opat:.y, or do you think it will Lnt really have much effect one way or the other? I a~ just ~ □ pin: it doesn't destroy it. ~hat is all. I don't think ~ore federal legislati~n will help. I don't see how it could. .uut at least, on the o~~her side, just hope that there is no fE,der,al legislation comes about that wil1 make it ille2_s.l, or destroy it. . J_n .' O"G,1er ii!Dr d s, do you feel that the American Institute, for example, should cooper!:;.te vJitb t~_,e ."""'~.L.A. in dea1 l.n~ with anv Dro 1~osed l2~isl2tion sim~lv V ...., {,_-: J frsm a strateg·ic standnoint. .. _. In a ·sense, as a mes.ns for protectin~ you.r 1)~•Jn interests. I don't · no:J whether they can cooperate with the A.h.A., but I think they s~~uld maintain their lobby in ~2sbington to see th~t their interests are maintained. ~het~er they do this through cooperation or assn independent body ••• Certeinly, if they need to do tl"is with t}1e . -~.i-~.,.4..--bo~,-Iever tbe :11ect1anics are done, whatever procedure--if it's done lobbyists or ho~ever,--I don't see thet the £ssoc1at1ou is important. cJ. - c~-.:e other .;_uestion--1·.Jere you faF~i1i'.:J.r Wi tn the events lead- in? to tLe ~nerger--and J.. use th•jt word with sc:me qualms--be- cause some pe op:Le questL::med ~,Jbet'c-1er th.ere was a mercer be­ t\,Jeen the interr1:.1tLma1 Eahne;na:rtnian Croup s.nd the .A;~1er ican 0 Inr:; ti tute cf :· m1e op2. thy. ~.- Yes, I am familiar with the situation. For several years there had been discussions by toth organizations about uni ting forces. It seemed rather losical f~r the two or[ani- zations to join h~nds in a common DUrpose. ~or the last 15 years thet I had been attendj_n£: the c :mve~1 tions b otb the lHA and -~ t~e AIH had h~ld their meetin~s to7ether at the saTe time s.nd ,-·;lace ~\fi th abo,, t tte same people particip2ti.ng in both Yet each crgsnizaticm >:2nted to main02.in its cor- po1-iate entity. ·1 he IHA v,r:,:s orif~'ina1ly formed t") maintain 1 the ;yurist form of hrrn1eopat~-:y, an-3. I thinl·: it served a very useful rurpose in makin~ the AIR realize t~e value of its homeops.t>,ic heritage, because the IHA remained true to basic 50 and in its ~rogra~s. By 195l+-55 fer amalgam2tini the two societies. 3y 1958 there was more insistence tt1[:.. t somet·c~inz definit:;c be done. T1 he trc:~1 sury f both the IHA and the AIL needc3 -=~; stro{l~-; financial tonic. the ~r. lroup sent out s2veral informstive news letters ta the uetion. I h3ve ost of these letters and ~y volu8inous corres- -~:cnden::;.e. ·.111er•e didn't see:·1 to be any c:ctive opposition ::1[.'D'lnst t~e merger. ~he ~ain problem centered around hew it s~ould be done. tost of the to tbe IEA ~veI'e retain- ed; such as the Senate of Seniors, the Internati~~al members wb o were to be includ,::_:d as associate members, 2~nd the inclu- sion of both names on the J·ournal.. r11 he reason that the two corporations were not merged was due to a L)t of corporate legal difficulties encountered. I recall that Bronte Greenwood, who was the legal attorney consulted, felt it would be very difficult to do, but I don't recall why nor can I find his letter explainin: it. ·.2 o r:revect ar}_y disharinonJ, or feelini_;s that tbe IHA member­ ship had not been consulted on this importact decision, my committee, _Jr. l'roup, and Jr. ::;o'Jkinham felt we sho'Jld poll t!-1e entire IEA membership E·</l get their reacticiD to the merger. Dr. Neiswander .51 rhen at the next annual meeting we would have definite results 1 to report. This was done in one of Dr. Troup's explanatory news letters with a return postcard enclosed with four questions ~nit. There were 88 members less 6 cards which were returned-­ marked 11 gone 11 or 11 movedu. rhis left 82 who were reached • 1 .50 members answered by about April 1. 41 favored the merger, 5 were against it. 4 were undecided until they knew more of the details. 44 favored merging the two publications. 3 were against it. 3 undecided. 10 more replies were received later. 8 voted for merger and 2 were against it. This was reported at the 1959 IHA business meeting and it was duly voted then to carry out the merger as soon as certain formalities were attended to by the officers and editors of both organizations. Both the IHA and the AIH in their regular business meetings decided to merge. This was the split-up about 1880, (My records show the first president was Dr. P. P. Wells, Brooklyn, New York. Dr. James Tyler Kent was president in 1887), when the high potency homeopaths, primarily, decided that it was nonsense to attend the kind of meetings where very little homeopathy was and let's have the meetings where we talk homeopathy and nothing else. And so they formed this separate International Hahnemannlan Organization. They met at an entirely different time, and different place. But in the last 15 years of their life, they met in the same hotel as the American Institute the first half of the week and the International the last half of the week. Eventually we almagamated the programs and Monday, Tuesday and Dr. Neiswander 52 Wednesday was the American Institute and Tuesday, wednesday and Thursday was the International. 'l'his was how they got together. D.- It was actually a gradual merger in 1959-60. out in effect it was simply a recognition of the fact the.t the International group had served its purpose. N.- Heally no need for it to exist any more because the homeopathic came to the meetings, and were the ones who actually believed and practiced homeopathy. In the old days there weren 1 t very many homeopaths who came to the American Institute that practiced or believed homeopathy. Papers weren't even homeopathic-related until recent years. None at all. There is no reason to go to their meeting any more unless you present this kind of material. It is nonsensical to go and pre sent a paper on how to do an appendix operation. D.- Well, how do you account for this transition in the American Institute'? Was it that the younger men tend to join the Ins ti tutE rather than the International? As I understand it, there were considerable differences earlier between the International Association and the Institute. The Institute, I gather, was much more liberal, or tolerant, I don't know whether that 1s the correct terminology. Let's say that they accepted a wide variety of members. N.- Anyone who graduated from a Homeopathic Medical School could belong to the American Institute. The International limited their membership to those who believed actually in prescribing homeopathically. Most of them were using high potency remedies and some of the fellows are actually bragging because they never gave anything less than a lOM in this country. .Jr. i,:e i swa oder 53 ). - _:.;ut, vJhat happened then, as the rants of the h0me opatb tend to diraL-1ish, wl~ich would certainly be true in the 40' s and 50' s, let us say that those less interested in homeop8thy, as such, or less inclined to practice it as such, !radually fell out, so what you had t~en w~s a hard core ~ore or less •.• J.'hat is r igbt. The ones that were nracticin~ homeooathy were L- .__, ,t. t •~e on 1 y ones wno ~ere comin[ I • •...J.- So that t:_is then, in effect, removed the essentiE\l difference _: • ...-,..n6 there wasn 1 t any need to present i:.,,apers on r: ow to treat pneumonia with penicillin because there were better ways al- ready available to a trained homeopath. :,el~, I think that we have covered most of tbe points that I wanted to raise. I wonder if you mir ht--I could ask you to give a brief statement a.st(:;, 1,,·:hat ymJ thin:~ or ',•Jh&t ;you feel is tr1e future of homeop9thy. .{c:s.t its :)rospects are, its ) r ob 1 e ms are . You l1 cW c a 3_ ready ind 1 ca te d t <: e s e , Lu t d 'J you think you m1 6 ht sumtJarize them, -Lhe future':· ;·~here are v;e [;Oing? 1 wish l tnew. l helped in -che reorganization of the AmErical'3. Institute in hopes that it would improve some of these thinls• Of course one of the protlems was in communication. Our problems were relative to not spendin~ ooncy i~ a pr~per way probably, and carrying on a ~ind of research that could be picked u~_by some other scientific grouµ. I think t\fe need to interest some other scientific areas to the extent that they will take this on as a project. ihe ideas are sound, I think. ihere is no question about the3e being sound princi0les. /2e have to have some basic .Jr. Neiswander 54 scientists 1)1C}( u1_, and really work l'.Jith it. I have i.1_or·:es ths.t tLis will happen. If not here, maybe in Germany, or m:.sybe in 11·rance in sc:ne of their rcsef;;.rcb. institutes. Cnce this is started I think it will ce picked up all over the world. l really do. ~-- 0ut you don't feel the prospects are too bri&ht in the G. s. at tbe present? .:."· Hot really. ). - dut J:_,u a.o feel thet the work being done in other areas ulti­ mately will affect us? I don I t 2. S sound and can die, no matter what a~ybody does to it. Of course, you know C_hristis.nity t~rew because of tbe n'.lmber of Christians that vJere persecuted in the be_sin~in:;ts of tLe Christian era. This isn't true with this. ',,'hy is this? I would like to know, too. Usually w:~en you -~~1 ersecu.te people it mahes them stick to it harder. I'bis v1as: 't true v-Jith homc.o~xitby. 1 _). - It is interestin[ that homeopathy actual1y developed under an actual perse cu.ti 0:1 in the 19th century when the A. h. A. was fightin[ homeop&tty • •Jhen they i•Jere really actively fig~1tinf--tt---.:at is when the homeops.ths really developed--i--.Jhen they quit fightin2 the tbinrc.,. oecan to die. J.- Yes. ·.ihe:ee may be some truth in tr'lis, .1 suspect. "lbe A.I-I.A. by pla}in[ down the struggle ••• l'hey t:~'.ok in all the homeop::1ths. ·. . · hey said y:)U al1 can come into our medical scbools, our medical societies. -~✓ e will accept .JOU 2s grauat.es '~;f 01;.r -1eciical sch'.JOls, and removed the Dr.Neiswander 55 0 1---ulir~:~tion 0'"-""' and tc-,ev --;uit -:i fi~·ttirw. All the do::;tors ~·;ho r:rad- .. V C...::::: 0 - ua ted from E')me opathic -. eu.ics. --- . 00 l s v-Je1.. e taken intc our J_ ::.:icr medical schools, and accepted as _raduates of their medical schools--cverycoc c:f tr·,em--a.11 of t:•ie;n, all over tl--:e count:ry. D.- Yes. ·• 1 ,,e 7 J ..L t'···t l i,..., ...,_,::, 1(1.~ v. 0c• been an interestin~ discussion. I appre- j_ ow you, as a practiclnc l)hysioian, hs.ve s. heavy ~;_:rs.otice, and obviously don't have too much time, but 1 tbiuh. what ✓-:-m hs.ve to say w 11} be use- fu.l, a~~a I knm,J ti'.1st it will be beneficial. ~.- I don't always have tte answers, and probably Joesn't anyone have any answers, but we have talked about it a lot. ~e have been ~:::ic~: to '""Jashins;t on for our board meeting in January, and our national meetin[. in Ju.ne, an:3. lar~t year we did the same our tL:ie talkin 6 about this thJ..ng--what I wish some- b ociy ha.d. the mazic answer. I d :JD I t lznow. Eow do you Ti ot i va te .J.- ~tis s difflc~Jlt situation . .Js you t~int the 1l~1erican ?ounda- tion is servins its purpose~ ~s an effective zroup? As it thine tbat is availa~le--it's like askin:'-- your because you are me'? I don' t ln1 m·.r. ibis is our source of publics- tion and ~;~ublicity--a central a.r·ea of ·Jur orcenization now. I su)posc l a:ri tino. of discoura.:~_ed E\cout the ;fr,olc tbin.f_, too. a~tanization about 7 c:. .,__ .,I yea.rs. )r. i.ie iswander l f ;;JE C8.. n , -· ;Jll} ,'Jork. iE are too affluent a society. what tD do. read up the newspaper headlines, and let the radio announcer tell us what to do. D.- l suspect there is some trutt ln what ycu say. ~e are, I t'dini..~, t•Jo conformist. -.. E a:r•c too reluctant to try sometLing new. 57 minds, ~nd he does a Jretty iosd Jab of it. ~-- Jay, tbis cames bach tc a point I made earlier, w~ich I thlnk is t;:r•ue, tr,::,t ti:e majority of ::eople who c1ave gone into homeo- p=,tny in the lb:_,t 20 0~1 JO years certainly have been f.3.irly stroni:_: individuals wi.:o believe: L.1 s,)metbin,:.:: er h2,ve hE'i.d some C'Xferiencc 1:.ilt:: it, ':lnJ have decideci ts buck the trend. Tbe up toe muct of your time. Thank you very muc~. You have been very helpful. i~nd of ':I.1ape ~r. Neiswander Footnotes 1. Samuel hahnemarn~, Cierman physician and theorist, founder of homeopathy. 2. ~Jil liam ,ieave~~ l a Cynwyd, l'a.; ,Iyrtb Post Saker, W\, O., Washington, 0. C. That the organism is found in every case of a disease; that the disease can be introduced ty th2.t same organism. 4. California Medical tlSsociation. 5· Orp:anon der rationellen, Heilkunde. 6. rn.W ¼illiam A. Young, ~ITlllicothe, Ohio; ~enjamin Goldberg,~.». Cincinne.ti, Ohio; '>I;yrth Post Baker~~shington, .). C.; m~ ,·iilli :nn :ieaver,lBala Gynwyd, Pa.; James 3tephenson,m,o.> 0 rt\~ hew Yort City; Otto Guttentag,(Sb.n /rancisco, Calif. ,.,di tor of 'i·be Layman ,:3pealrn, i:\eedham, I".as s. n~ A • .Jwie;ht Smith,lGlendale, Calif.; C'. Dr. Allen Neiswander 59 INDEX Academy of General Practice, California, 23 Alaska, 42 Alhambra, California, 23 Allentown, Pennsylvania, 23-24 Allergy, 16 American Academy of General Practitioners, JJ American Foundation for Homoeopathy, 32, 55 American Institute of Homeopathy, 19-20, 24, 26, 32, 48-53 American Medical Association, 20, 25, 27, 33, 47-49, 54 Antibiotics, 5-6, 9, 17-18, 28, 53 Antihistamines, 5 Baker, Dr. Wyrth Post, 8, 33, 44 Bluffton College, Ohio, 2 Bristol of London, 18 California homeopaths, age of, 30-Jl California Medical Association, 20, 22 California State Homeopathic Society, 19 Cancer, treatment of, 16-17 Cohn, Dr., 9 Cook1nham, Dr. Franklin, 50 Craig, Mr. Cell, 24 Cure-alls in Medicine, 16-18 Dr. Neiswander 60 Double-blind studies, 10, 43 Dunham, Dr. Carrol, 26 Epidemics, homeopathic treatment of, 39-40 Farrington, Dr., 26 Flexner, Abraham, 25 Flexner Report, 25-26 France, 27, 54 Germany, 27, 54 Goldberg, Dr. Benjamin, 33 Gram, Dr. Hans, 23 Green, Arthur 8.)41 Green, Dr. Julia,a~l Guttentag, Dr. Otto E., 33-35, 43 Hahnemann, Dr. Samu.el C., J, 46 Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, 32 Hering, Dr. Constantine, 23, 26 Hippocrates, 36 Homeopathy, dilution .of dosage, 14 Homeopathy, future of, 37-39 Homeopathy, philosophy of, 6, 22 Homeopathy, postgraduate education in, 30-31 Homeopathic remedies, 19 Hubbard, Dr. Elizabeth W., l Hylands Homeopathic Manufacturing .Pharmacy, 24, 47 Dr. Neiswander 61 Immunization, 15-16 India, 27, 37-38 International Hahnemannian Association, 26, 51-52 Internists, 11, 13, 22, JO Kaiser Permanente Clinic, 11-12 Kent, Dr. James ryler, 26, 42, 49-51 1 Koch, Hobert, 8 Law of Similars, 16 Laymen's Organizations, 40-41 Lindeman, Dr. C. W., 50 Los Angeles County General Hospital, 2 Los Angeles County Homeopathic Society, 19, 21 Los Angeles County Medical Association, 23 LSD, 9 Lutyies Pharmaceuticals, St. Louis, 24, 46 Medicare, 15, 27, 48 Menninger Clinic, 31 Mexico, 27 Murphy, Mr., 24 National Institute of Health, 43 Ohio, 1 Ohio State University College Medical School, 1-2 Dr. Neiswander 62 Organon, 27 ~harmacy Association, 47 Potencies of homeopathic drugs, J-4, 35, 41 Psychiatry, 9, 13, 22, 29, 43 .~uinine , 3 Roberts, Dr. H. A., 1 Roos Loos Clinic, 11 B.ussia, 38 San Gabriel, California, 23 Shadman's Hospital, Boston, l Smith, Dr. A. Dwight, 44 South America, 27 Spalding, Dr. aay, l Stephenson, Dr. James, 33-35 Sulphanilamides, 28 Sutherland, .Dr. Allan, l Thuja, 36 Troup, Dr. Ronald, 50-51 University of Denver, Jl Underliter, Dr., 9 Weaver, Dr. William A., Jr., 8, 33, 44 Wells, Dr. P. P., 51 Dr. Neiswander 63 Wesner, Dr. William, 50 Young, Dr. William w., 33