EDITORIAL


EDITORIAL. Let the profession unite in vigorous efforts to save the Art of Homoeopathy from destruction by utilizing the tools for teaching now at hand, putting aside the past and the dreams it engenders for the brightness of a future which determination will make a sparkling reality.


POSTGRADUATE HOMOEOPATHIC TRAINING.

There are some who maintain that the salvation of Homoeopathy in the United States depends upon the re-establishment of Homoeopathic medical colleges such as were maintained at the turn of the century. With this point of view, the writer would agree, were conditions to-day the same as those which existed fifty years ago. Then Homoeopathy presented a untied front against the assaults of its detractors. Its very existence seemed to depend upon its vigorous defense of its principles as well as its proselyting spirit and its ability to teach those principles to its converts. The obvious way to do this way by founding and maintaining separate schools for the teaching of medicine and Homoeopathy.

All went well until the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association was formed, charged with the standardization of medical education and of the schools purporting to provide it. Many schools, unable to meet the standards thus set up, were obliged to close their doors. Among these were most of the Homoeopathic colleges then in existence as well as a large number of the schools teaching regular medicine.

The remaining colleges were classified according to their ability to meet the standards required, a Class A college representing one which was able to fulfil the highest standards. Not long afterwards the Medical Practice Acts of the various States were revised to require applicants for licensure to be graduates of Class A medical colleges. As a result of this, Class B and Class C schools had to close their doors because of lack of students. The reason for this is obvious, for what student will desire to graduate from a school whose diploma will not be recognized by this State in which the student wishes to practice?.

With conditions in medical education as they are today, would it be possible for Homoeopathy to found and maintain a Class A medical school which could find the time adequately to teach Homoeopathy? The answer is no. Both Hahnemann of Philadelphia and the New York Medical School have found it impossible. That is the real reason why Homoeopathy in those schools has been made an elective course.

Granted that it would be possible for Homoeopathy to found and maintain a Class A medical school, would it be possible to find a faculty competent and willing to teach Homoeopathy? Again the answer is no. Competent homoeopaths there are, to be sure, but how many would be willing to give up lucrative practices for a teachers salary?.

The profession should give up its autistic fantasies to face the realities of the present. To-day, the notion of a homoeopathic medical school is but an idealistic dream, as insubstantial as a bubble and as easily shattered.

The only hope for the training of homoeopaths lies in postgraduate education. The profession must cease crying on each others shoulders, bewailing the decadence of Homoeopathy, and do something constructive for the good of the cause. The American Foundation for Homoeopathy had maintained a postgraduate school in Homoeopathy for the past thirty years. It numbers among its faculty some f the top homoeopaths in the world, but have the weepers, the wailers, the gnashers of teeth done a thing to bring students to the School where they can learn real Homoeopathy from experts? The answer is no; rather they seem more willing to drown n their own tears than to raise a finger to prevent the very thing they so bemoan.

Let the profession unite in vigorous efforts to save the Art of Homoeopathy from destruction by utilizing the tools for teaching now at hand, putting aside the past and the dreams it engenders for the brightness of a future which determination will make a sparkling reality.

Allan D. Sutherland
Dr. Sutherland graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and was editor of the Homeopathic Recorder and the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
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.