Homeopathy Online is a moderated World Wide Web (WWW) journal providing a forum for information exchange among homeopaths and students. Its focus is on the practice of homeopathy as exemplified by the spirit of men and women such as Samuel H ahnemann, James Tyler Kent, and Margaret L. Tyler. We acknowledge that homeopathy is an evolving system of healing, and seek to represent a balance between classical tradition and more recent modalities. To advance a diversity of views and to achieve that ever-elusive compromise between the wisdom of the past and the innovation of the present, when possible Homeopathy Online will host Guest Editors who will direct its theme and content. Homeopathy Online is devoted to exploring and expanding the possibilities which the Internet holds for homeopathy. Within the technical possibilities and constraints of the WWW, we endeavor to provide a stimulating, exciting, and intuitive environment. As a WWW journal with an international subscriber base, o ne of Homeopathy Online's foremost goals is the advancement of homeopathic medicine and the bolstering of national organizations which support a similar cause.

Homeopathy Online welcomes submissions and also seeks applications for guest editorships and interactive case moderators. Please address queries to Chris Kurz, editor@cam.dungeon.com.

Interested in volunteering? We need experienced editors, preferably with some knowledge of homeopathy, who can edit and help conform articles to our stylistic guidelines. We also have a need for basic HTML coders to put in ten or so hours on each bimon thly issue. We can teach you what you need to know to help out with the HTML work. Or, if you have good organizational and communication skills, we're looking for someone to track articles from receipt at Homeopathy Online through to editing and la yout. We're also seeking fine art images and/or photographs with subject matter relating to homeopathy for use in future issues. For more information, please contact Chris Kurz at editor@cam.dungeon.com.

Jerri Andreasen's interest in computers and the Internet can be traced back to the computer science classes she took while an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley. These classes came too late, however, and she had to be content with a degree in Sociology. Soon after graduation she attended the Computer Learning Center in San Francisco where she earned a Certificate in Programming. It made a most excellent paper airplane. Jerri then gained employment as a Database Programmer, and worked in that occupation for a year and a half. At that point she became restless, and decided to move to Seattle, the heart of the great Pacific Northwest.

Arriving in Seattle with her partner and a U-Haul full of belongings, the two quickly located a house. Finding a suitable job, however, was a more difficult matter. Eventually, she was hired as a Support Technician at the (now defunct) Aldus Corporation. For the first few years at Aldus, Jerri supported PageMaker, PhotoStyler and FreeHand; then she was promoted to Technical Support Supervisor, a job she held for two more years. After leaving Aldus, Jerri worked in the technical support departments of a few other local software companies, but found that after nearly seven years of technical support, she was ready for a new challenge. She quit her job and began a self-directed course of study on web site building, including HTML, Perl, and design techniques. She contributed Perl CGI programming to Homeopathy Online for the Feedback, Letters, Exchange, and Interactive Case Analysis pages, for navigability between the index and article pages and for the random quote routine on the interleaving pages. She consults on WWW site design and implementation projects as The Web Design Studio. Jerri is an Information Publishing Lead at Microsoft, where she works on ITGWeb, the Information Technology Group's Intranet site. Jerri can be contacted at jerria@webds.com.

Jerri says her cat hates her, and only puts up with her because of her opposable thumb, which is useful for operating the can opener.

Katherine Enos graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in American History. She started out studying diplomatic history and ended up writing her thesis on the New York Dadaist movement. She also followed up on her year-long stay as an American Field Service high school exchange student to Japan by studying a lot of Japanese and trying to stop bowing to American professors.

Subsequent to taking her B.A. degree, Katherine entered the Film Theory & Production master's degree program at San Francisco State University. She also studied photography, creative writing and the arts while at San Francisco State University. Katherine holds a California certificate in massage and studied homeopathy at the Pacific Academy of Homeopathic Medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As well as being a filmmaker whose experimental films about the body have shown at domestic and international venues and festivals, Katherine is also a fine art photographer whose subject matter focuses on still lifes and nudes. Last but not least, she also has a novel in progress.

Katherine LOVES HER BIKE and, now that she is no longer actively working on Homeopathy Online, she hopes to resume her long, long rides on Seattle's wonderful bicycle trails. She is even looking into snow chains (okay, so they're not really necessary in Seattle). Now if she can just get a laptop . . . She is a contractor at Microsoft's Redmond campus, where she works on several external websites. Katherine also consults privately on website design.

Katherine played a major role in the development of Homeopathy Online, including doing the design and building of the initial site, editing and setting up an editing department, recruiting volunteers to work on the site, webmistressing, and managing production efforts. She has also been responsible for the bulk of the graphic design and production work to date. She is thankful for having met and enjoyed e-mail correspondences with some very smart and cool people during this time, including Patty Smith (the homeopath, not the singer), the elliptical Stanley Fefferman (aka "buddha-man stanley"), and Betsy Levine. Katherine can be reached at enos@wolfenet.com.

Robert Fordham, a columnist for Homeopathy Online, holds the credentials M.Sc., P.G.C.E., R.S.Hom., B.R.C.P. (Hom.), and P.C.H., and graduated from Durham University with degrees in biology and ecology. Bob is a qualified teacher who graduated from The Northumbria College of Homoeopathy after working with young people and experiencing homeopathy first-hand as a patient. He shares a practice with two homeopaths in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK). The three have developed a "Partnerships for Health" initiative aimed at forming links between homeopaths and local orthodox health services. Bob is pursuing his interest in the development of homeopathic education as a medical student at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle where he is using action research methods to explore the development and application of working homeopathic knowledge. He represents the college's Homoeopathic Education and Research Forum on the Society of Homoeopaths Education Board.

These days – if he gets to the top of a hill – Bob can be heard to reminisce about how it used to feel to ski down! He is unmarried to Cynthia. They have two lovely children, Anna and Patrick.

Mary L. Henderson says that she volunteers her time and skills as a way of giving thanks for homeopathy and to help bring homeopathy to others through the Internet. How did Mary come to homeopathy? After four surgeries, Mary's allopathic physicians had advised her that there was nothing more that could be done to help her regain full use of her left hand and that it was time for "lifestyle changes." Mary took a "Principles of Healing" class in college; this class was a survey of alternative health modalities with a strong emphasis on homeopathy. Within a few months of beginning her own homeopathic constitutional treatment, she was once again able to type 40-80 hours per week without the limiting pain, numbness, tingling, etc., that she had endured for four years. Mary likes the fact that she is now using her restored dexterity to help spread the word about homeopathy. She can be reached via e-mail at marylou@primenet.com.

Douglas Hoff provides assistance in editing and HTML to Homeopathy Online. Currently living in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, Doug is a webmaster for a web design firm. He is also a member of the Three Trails Homeopathic Study Group and the National Center for Homeopathy. Since 1985 he has participated in study groups and practiced as a lay homeopath in both Southern and Northern California. His past vocations have included catering chef, junior college computer science instructor, graphic artist, and computer graphics consultant. He can be reached through his personal home page or via e-mail at dhoff@aol.com.

Chris Kurz, Homeopathy Online Senior Editor, was born 31 years ago in Austria in a small town close to Vienna. As Chris tells it, after all the dust had settled from growing up and going through puberty he decided that he wanted to become either a scientist or a musician. Not being able to justify giving up either one, Chris split his time and energies between the two, studying physics at the Technical University of Vienna, and Jazz Saxophone at the Conservatory of Vienna. He graduated from both schools in 1989, and then reality caught up with him and he realized a career decision was unavoidable: music or science. Chris received an offer to continue towards a Ph.D. in physics in America at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts – so the decision was made for him. During his studies he worked as a physics teacher and concurrently developed a hands-on physical science curriculum for 10 to 19 year-old students, a curriculum now being marketed across the United States.

In 1995, Chris graduated with a Ph.D. in Plasma Physics. He is now employed as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at San Diego.

Chris' parents used homeopathy, so he was exposed to this field of medicine very early on as a patient. It was only after Chris arrived in the United States and found out that homeopathic care was much less accessible than in Europe that he considered learning more about it. For the past four years, Chris has explored the field of homeopathic medicine. He obtained the bulk of his homeopathic education by building up a nice library of books and reading every single one of them over the long Boston winters. He attended every seminar available on the east coast and tried to interact with other homeopaths as much as possible.

In the last year Chris has extended his practice of homeopathy beyond his circle of friends and family. He doesn't maintain a full-time practice, but does have enough of a case load to gain valuable clinical experience. Chris considers himself fortunate in that he has had the help and supervision of skilled homeopaths along the way.

Teaching is one of Chris' passions and he hopes to help establish high educational standards in homeopathy. His long-term goal is to unite science and homeopathy in his life and to demonstrate to skeptics on both sides that the seeming schism between these two fields is a reflection of our thinking and not a fact of nature.

Betsy Levine has recently begun what promises to be a life-long study of homeopathy, having been drawn to it in a belated (and unsuccessful) attempt to save the most fun-loving and loyal companion she has known, her Briard Arthur. She weaves, paints, edits, writes, and studies in New Haven, CT, where she shares a home with her husband, Ben Kann, and their three Briards, Larry, Billie, and Celeste. As a former special-interest magazine art director, editor, and publisher who got her start in publishing as a physics journal production editor, she is pleased to be able to contribute an inquiring mind, and a sharp pencil, to the pages of Homeopathy Online. Betsy has also taken responsibility for increasing amounts of HTML work and contributes much to helping Homeopathy Online work out operational procedures.

Sharon Lord assisted with HTML conversion. She left the south and journalism three years ago and is working to establish herself in the web development industry. Sharon can be reached at lords@tmc.tosco.com.

Tam Llewellyn-Edwards is by training and inclination a "classical homoeopath." Tam completed his training at the American School of Classical Homeopathy in San Diego. As he was already an animal psychologist, his i ntention was to become a veterinary homoeopathy. But he was surprised to find upon returning to his native United Kingdom in 1974 that it was illegal for a non-veterinary to treat animals with homoeopathy, whereas it was quite legal to treat humans! Conse quently he started a practise in homoeopathy (for humans) and has been in practise ever since.

During the early part of his practise Tam obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by following academic research in holistic studies. He practised first in London and later in the north of England, and is currently practising as one of the partners in a mixed complementary medicine practise in the small Yorkshire village of Tickhill. The practise includes an aromatherapist, a hypnotherapist, a reflexologist, and two healers, as well as Tam as clinic homoeopath. Tam has also been a member of the part-t ime staff of a number of universities in the U.K. as a supervisor to post-graduate students at masters and doctoral levels. In 1975, Tam was honoured by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Scienc e.

Tam has now practised for over twenty years and continues to view his therapy as "classical," but over the years he has seen and practised a number of less-than-classical forms of homoeopathy . Some were successful and some not. Tam hopes to int roduce to the readers of Homeopathy Online some of the therapies on the margins of classical homoeopathy.

Greg Oosterbaan is enjoying being home in New Zealand again after eleven years away. The first five of these years he spent studying natural medicine in Australia, primarily homeopathy and herbalism. After graduating, Greg headed to Taiwan for a short holiday, but destiny had better plans: Greg met Shu-yuan in Taiwan, and his planned holiday miraculously transformed itself. The island became his home for the next six years, during which he learned Chinese and began working as a translator, specializing mainly in medical translation.

Greg and Shu-yuan are now married and living in New Zealand with their new baby. Between his translation assignments, Greg is finding time to get involved in homeopathy again, and he is looking forward to establishing a practice as a classical homeopath i n his hometown.

Stacy Munn received her B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Washington. Her wanderlust has caused her to find employment and residence in Cologne, Germany, Innsbruck, Austria, San Francisco, and most recently, Osaka, Japan. A craving for the latest in internet technology has led her back to Seattle, Washington.

Stacy has been a fitness instructor and personal trainer for seven years and is a true believer in preventative health care and natural healing methods. You can find her biking, in-line skating, hiking or kayaking in and around Seattle on weekends when she's not travelling. When she is travelling, it's probably a business trip. Stacy is the quality manager for a start-up ship management company and is busy training and auditing the ship's crew.

Tony Richie age 13, has lived on the west coast of California for 12 years. He grew up collecting fossils and exploring sea life in the tidepools of Arena Cove. He currently lives in Manchester with his parents and his older brother Stephen, 15, where they are home-schooled. He has two more older brothers and a sister. Scott, his eldest brother has many hobbies and interests. He is married and works locally. Erick is enrolled in college at Sonoma State University where he studies music. Tony's older sister, Jeannette, recently graduated from Dominican College of San Rafael where she received a B.A. in International Studies. His family is one of "hands-on" activities.

Tony has many interests, the major one being computers, specifically Macintosh computers. Besides playing the current fad games he enjoys practicing his skills with such programs as Ray Dream Designer, and he has long since mastered HyperCard. He also assisted with the scanning of over a thousand pages of text and helping to correct the scanned material for A Call to Character A Family Treasury, a book that debuted last fall, by Colin Greer & Herbert Kohl, Editors.

He possesses an artistic ability that runs in the family and likes to experiment with various artistic endeavors. His current endeavor is sculpting soapstone. Another interest is the study of conifers and this hobby was sparked by his older brother Scott who has been doing bonsai for about 10 years. Tony became interested in collecting rare conifers and started his own collection a few years back. His plant collection now includes succulents, conifers and tropicals — he successfully grew bananas on a dwarf Canvendish banana plant. He likes to collect books about rare and unusual trees, ferns, palms and succulents. He hopes to learn how to do grafting after being inspired by reading the life story of Luther Burbank.

He helps care for the family menagerie of seven cats, two parakeets, one canary as well as his older brother Erick's exotic pets while Erick is at college. They are two beautifully colored corn snakes and numerous Emperor scorpions from West Africa.

Tony's parents became interested in Homeopathy after his father went to a homeopath for what he thought would be support therapy to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy. Homeopathy turned out to be a better healing experience than his father ever thought possible and his father's case is now listed in the IFH Small Remedies & Interesting Cases IV. His parents are now studying homeopathy.

Jennifer Spiro was raised in New York, but has been living in Seattle for nearly three years. Born in November 1968, she's an outgoing, impulsive and independent Scorpio with experience in film production, public relations and graphic design. She's currently a Senior Support Specialist for a local software manufacturer. You can see more of Jennifer's work at her home page.

Michael Tomlinson, the "crocodile" of The Crocodile's Opinion, is Vice-President of the Australian Association of Homoeopaths and editor of the Association's quarterly journal, Similia. He is also a member of the advisory committee for the Bachelor of Naturopathy degree at Southern Cross University in New South Wales. In his other life, he works in administration at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

Julian Winston was born in New York City and trained as an industrial designer at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He worked as a designer in product and packaging in New York, and then moved to Philadelphia, PA in 1969 to take a teaching job at the University of the Arts.

In Philadelphia he met Ray Seidel, M.D., HMD, a 1935 graduate of the Hahnemann Medical College. Ray became his physician and introduced him to homeopathy.

Ray urged him to go to the National Center of Homeopathy (NCH) summer school, and wrote a letter to the school asking that Julian be admitted to the three-week professional course.

At the summer school, Julian received three weeks of instruction from some good folks – Masie Panos, Henry Williams, Richard Moskowitz and Catherine Coulter.

Julian became Registrar of the NCH educational program in 1981 and began to teach both the first-aid and the history/pharmacy components.

In 1982 Julian took a sabbatical from teaching and traveled around the United States for a year, talking to doctors and considering ways of continuing his medical education. Julian was able to meet and talk to many U.S. homeopaths and spent three weeks sitting in on Dr. Karl Robinson's practice in New Mexico.

In 1982 Julian was elected to the NCH Board of Directors. He assumed the editorship of Homeopathy Today in 1984. He worked closely with NCH summer school and eventually became Dean of the NCH educational program.

In Philadelphia, Julian became acquainted with Jack Borneman at Borneman's Pharmacy and with Don Lee and Gus Tafel at B&T, and was invited to become a member of the Homeopathic Pharmacopaoeia Convention.

In 1992, Julian was invited to New Zealand for two weeks to assist the Wellington College of Homeopathy in creating a summer program. While there, Julian met Gwyneth Evans, a professional homeopath and WCH principal. The two were married in April 1994. In June, 1995, Julian gave up his tenured position at the University of the Arts and moved to New Zealand with his 4,000 old remedies, and 2,000 homeopathic books and journals.

Julian's homeopathic library and collection was one of the largest private collections in the United States and is now the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. He has original letters from Kent and Hering, original (handwritten) manuscripts of books, a repertory that belonged to J.H. Clarke, books bearing the signatures of Nash, Hering, Lippe, Fincke, and others, and a collection of homeopathic ephemera – postcards, photographs, bottles, etc.

Julian currently co-directs the Wellington College of Homeopathy and works part-time on the design school faculty at Wellington Polytechnic.

One of the last things Julian accomplished before leaving the United States was a video on the history of the American homeopathic movement. This video is available from the NCH for $29.95. It took five years to complete and is filled with over 300 images that Julian has collected over the years.

Julian continues to edit Homeopathy Today, and remains on the NCH Board of Directors. He is the editor of Homeopathy NewZ, a newsletter with nearly 200 subscribers.

Julian also plays the pedal steel guitar and five-string banjo – but that is another story . . . .

Jean-Marie Lambert, well known on The Homeopathy Mailing List for his work on The Archives, graduated as a Medical Doctor in 1973. In 1977 Jean-Marie began studying Homeopathy at the Liege School of Homeopathy in Belgium. Following this three-year course of study, he also completed an additional year of study at the Kentist School of Namur, Belgium, and then two more with Dr. Links' Kentist School of Homeopathy in Bruxelles.

Until 1987 Jean-Marie was a homeopath in private practice and lectured in the French-speaking part of Belgium. He was also an appointed Lecturer for the Namur School of Homeopathy from 1985 to 1987.

Due to health problems (now resolved!), Jean-Marie moved to the Middle East where he now works in a University Hospital and operates a part-time homeopathic clinic.

David Little has been a student of homeopathy for over 20 years. His primary teacher was the late Dr. Manning Strahl, who was a master cranial osteopath, chiropactor, homeopath, acupuncturist and hypnotherapist. David has run free clinics in India for 16 years, where the majority of his clients have been Tibetans, hill tribes and north Indians. He has also been sought out by many westerners who became ill while living and traveling in Asia. He was a friend and colleague of the late Dr. H. Choudury of Callcutta, who had 30 years of experience with the use of the LM potency. David is presently in the USA taking a year off from clinical practice to do research and complete a book he is writing on Hahnemannian Homeopathy.

Dr. Rajesh Shah has been involved in homoeopathic education and research since 1985, and is associated as Honorary Homoeopathic Consultant with Mumbadevi Homoeopathic Hospital and Hon. Visiting Lecturer at CMP Homoeopathic Medical College, Bombay. He is the founder president of The Foundation for Homoeopathic Research in Bombay. For last five years he has been teaching internationally, giving seminars in Europe and India. He has introduced two original approaches called "The Concept of Facets" and "The Phenomenological Approach" towards better application of the materia medica. He edits a homoeopathic journal, Homoeopathy Times. His book, My Experiences with Ferrum metallicum, was published in 1992. He conducts a "Clinical Course for European homoeopaths" in Bombay.

Patty Smith has been trying to figure out homeopathy since 1977, when she became engaged to a Swedenborgian who grew up with the Boericke family and was handed two bottles — one of Belladonna and one of Arnica. She subsequently bought Dana Ullman's book Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century, where she was stuck on page 17 for a number of years thinking there was a typo (how could it get stronger when it is more dilute?).

When her father was admitted to Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia for a triple bypass, she already was suggesting alternative treatment (and reading, at that time, Robert Mendelsohn's "Confessions of a Medical Heretic"). Following surgery there was a medical snafu, putting him into a coma for five months before he died at Christmas, 1980.

With more determination, and after witnessing homeopathic miracles in her home (ex-husband's finger almost being severed by a lawnmower but healing beautifully; burned hand when she put the potholder on her right hand and removed the Thanksgiving turkey with her left; food poisoning, etc.) she began her studies in earnest.

She joined the Bryn Athyn, PA study group (affiliated with the National Center for Homeopathy) and eventually turned her holistic parenting group in Mercer County, NJ into another affiliated study group. She served as the New Jersey representative to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Study Group Council and helped create and revitalize study groups in NJ. She was awarded a scholarship from Boiron to the National Center's Summer School.

She has studied whenever she could, with whomever she could. The list includes Rudolf Verspoor, Melissa Assilem, Jeremy Sherr, David Warkentin, Richard Moskowitz, Misha Norland, Vega Rosenberg, Frederick Schroyens, Robert Stewart, Mitchel Shapiro, Jane Cicchetti and many others. After more than 600 hours of study she decided to undertake the courses offered by the British Institute of Homeopathy, was awarded her DIHom. (Pract.) diploma and is curently finishing her post-graduate thesis.

In 1995 she moved from New Jersey to Ottawa, Canada after being offered a partnership in the Norsana Academy Clinic, sharing the space with Rudolf Verspoor and Peter Quenter (and a talented nutritionist and insightful student of homeopathy, Lorraine Picot). She is the Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs for the British Institute (Canada) and is on the Board of Directors of the National United Professional Association of Trained Homeopaths (Canada). She shares the co-directing duties of HomeoNet with David Warkentin. Last, but by no means the least of it — she loves and adores her two rambunctious daughters, Meghan (age 9) and Kelsey (age 7).

Ian Townsend, moderator of Homeopathy Online's Interactive Case Analysis, completed his initial homeopathic training at the Northumbria College of Homoeopathy in England. The Northumbria College was the first successful educational cooperative in which a group of students committed themselves to each other's development as homeopaths. The majority of the students from Ian's class progressed to full-time practice and eventual registration with the Society of Homeopaths.

Subseqent to his tenure at the Northumbria College, Ian completed The Dynamis School's two-year Advanced Diploma under the tutelege of Jeremy Sherr. Ian now runs practices in a large industrial British town and in a smaller rural market town.

For most of his adult life, Ian Townsend has been involved in education – first as a teacher, then as a teacher-trainer. His educational training led him into secondary (12-16) Science Education; educational technology ("toys for the boys" as one of his friends calls it!) and, latterly, Alternative Education.

For ten years, as a national consultant to the central Government Body, Ian was responsible for the training of nurses and midwives. While launching national initiatives into the usage of computer technology in nurse education, Ian and his partner discovered parenthood, natural childbirth, and relaxation – which for Ian was the start of the long slippery slope to homeopathy.

In 1982, Ian Townsend developed an interest in British homeopathic education – first as a consumer, then as a practitioner. Along with Bob Fordham and Dee McLachlan, he pioneered one of the first locally-based video-case courses for postgraduate practitioners.

Ian has taught at the London College of Classical Homoeopathy and at the Manchester College of Classical Homoeopathy. Ian is a founder and Clinical Director of the Sheffield School of Homeopathy. Since 1993, he has also been a Senior Tutor at the Scottish College of Homoeopathy in Glasgow.

When not practising or teaching homeopathy, Ian Townsend can be found wondering if his 17 year-old daughter will ever stop practising her flute (on weekends he sees, or more appropriately "hears" five hours daily non-stop practice). Ian is getting his own back by trying (accent the "trying") to learn to play alto sax, and sampling his collection of malt whiskies. He's also been known to spend hours on the end of e-mails . . . .

Rudolf Verspoor, Guest Editor for this issue, has been studying and practising homeopathy for over 10 years. He lives and works in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, at the clinic and school he helped to found, Norsana Academy. Rudi received his main homeopathic education with the British Institute of Homeopathy and holds the post-graduate practitioner diploma of the Institute (Canada), DHM (Pract.). He is currently President of the Canadian national homeopathic professional association, NUPATH, which he helped to found in 1994.

Rudi was one of the first to introduce to North America a new, advanced approach to homeopathy, "Sequential Therapy." He wrote the first English language book, Homeopathy Renewed, on this effective approach to chronic, complex cases developed by a Swiss homeopath over 25 years ago. Rudi loves teaching, which he finds an excellent way to prevent hardening of the brain cells.

Rudi can be reached via e-mail at rudi@web.net.