Dear Dr. Sutherland:
Please accept my sincere thanks for the publication of the article by Dr.Jacob Genis, M.D., named “Homoeopathist and Homoeopathy” in the April, 1953 issue of The Homoeopathic Recorder.
I am glad to find that Dr.Genis has hit at the root of the problem of the growth and spread of HOMOEOPATHY in U.S.A and U.K. or, as a matter of fact, anywhere in the world. Especially, I am thankful to him for supporting our stand in the matter of state recognition of HOMOEOPATHY by the Government of India. we in India are for completely separate Homoeopathic institutions for undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the teaching of Homoeopathy. We do hold that any compromise on the fundamentals injures our cause and degrades our soul.
Unless we can turn out complete Homoeopathic physicians by hundreds from, our own institutions, HOMOEOPATHY will never attain its full stature and will never spread to its desired extent in any country.
Our demand for a completely separate Homoeopathic institution (recovering a period of teaching of 4 or 5 years for the under-graduate course and another two years for the post- graduate course) is based on the following reasons:
1.A demand for a separate institution for the teaching of
HOMOEOPATHY does not imply denial of limitation in the scope and sphere of Homoeopathy. This demand arises out of a desire to afford an all-out opportunity to HOMOEOPATHY to evolve according to his genius.
2.Though HOMOEOPATHY starts as a specialized system of drug therapy, it wash developed in to a distinctive school of medical thought as the viewpoints of homoeopathic philosophy, the Homoeopathic materia medica, etc., are so fundamentally different from that of the parallel subject in the so-called allopathic system of medicine.
3.Many of us seem to labour under a misconception as regards the subject mater of medicine and its subjects satellite to medicine, e.g., anatomy,. physiology, pathology,. etc. Properly speaking the subject matter f medicine is concerned with the study of life, health and disease and methods of cure of diseases. It is the distinctive approach to the study of life, health and disease that constitutes the individually of a system of medicine. These auxiliary subjects are independent sciences- they are no monopoly of any particular medical system.
These studies supply us with a multitude of scientific facts but each system of medicine has its own interpretations and its own way of utilizing and applying the principles evolved out of these facts for the purpose of healing the sick. Hence it is clear that the mode of pedagogy in a homoeopathic institution regarding medicine proper, as well as auxiliary subjects, must be different from that in an institution of the allopathic system of medicine.
4.Homoeopathy is not a subject for post-graduate training for students of Allopathy. The post-graduate course in any subject implies a more intensive study of the said subject in continuation and in furtherance of the course of study which a candidate has already undergone to obtain his degree. “HOMOEOPATHY is not an extension of he modern medicine but a supplantation of it”-as very aptly remarked by George Bernard Show.
After passing through the full course of studies in an allopathic institution, certain viewpoints regarding diseases and drug actions are so indelibly stamped in the mind of average students that it proves very difficult to shed these in favour of the Homoeopathic viewpoints of which women are exactly opposite to those held by the other school. It is more difficult to unlearn a thing that to learn a new thing and to adapt oneself to the methods and mental make-up which are indispensable for a successful Homoeopathic prescriber. So we insist on completely separate institutions where the students, from the beginning. will move, live and have their being in the atmosphere of the Homoeopathic philosophy.
The introduction of the teaching of Homoeopathy only at a so-called post graduate level is impracticable psychologically, physiologically and economically. This arrangement will surely lead to rapid strangling of the Homoeopathic profession and eventual extinction of its practice in the country, due to shortage of human materials. Of course, we do advocate the teaching of auxiliary subjects to turn out a complete physician and not merely a Homoeopathic prescriber-but only after framing she syllabus of studies of the other subjects.-“mutatis mutandi” for the need of a Homoeopathic physician.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.