Of recent times, homeopathy in general, and homeopathic education in particular, has not had a strong institutional base. Homeopathy has been excluded from university medical schools in most countries, and from mainstream hospitals, and from research institutes.

In its heyday around the turn of the century, homeopathy was taught in the United States in a number of colleges which were equivalent to medical colleges. But it seems that these colleges did not constitute the strong base they might at first appear to have been. On the Homeopathy Mailing List, Julian Winston has told us a little about them, based on a talk given by Dan Cook, MD (due to be published in the September 1996 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy). It seems that from very early on they were staffed largely by allopaths, who were engaged to teach the health sciences, and that allopathic theory and therapeutics came to dominate over homeopathy in their curricula. There has been lively discussion on the list about the extent to which this takeover of the homeopathic colleges was responsible for the decline of homeopathy in the US.

It is not my purpose to enter into this particular controversy here, merely to take note of the weak institutional background to our current situation. (See Julian Winston's post of 8 December 1995, "History," and his post of 13 July 1996, "Re: Decline of Homeopathy in US," which includes an editorial by H.A. Roberts from The Homeopathic Recorder of January 1936).

Of course there is more to the background of past homeopathic education than the US experience. In the United Kingdom, the Faculty of Homeopathy and its predecessors has been undertaking homeopathic education since the 1840s. The faculty is the most prominent example in the Western countries of postgraduate homeopathic education for medical doctors. In this model, practitioners undertake the arduous and lengthy medical degree over four years (with a further two years of internship). They are instructed fully in the bio-sciences, allopathic therapeutics, and clinical skills, and absorb a model of health, disease and treatment which is fundamentally opposed to homeopathy. Those whose capacity for independent thinking survives this indoctrination can then undertake homeopathic education through the Faculty. Faculty courses have traditionally been on the short side, as busy practitioners are not in a position to undertake further lengthy courses. Despite the disadvantages of this model, many fine homeopaths have been trained in this way.

India has been the great exception to the rule that homeopathic education has not been strongly institutionalised — a number of government-accredited courses have existed for many years. A typical homeopathic course at a medical faculty or university in India looks very much like a medical course. Over 4 - 5 1/2 years students study all the normal medical subjects ranging from anatomy, physiology histology and biochemistry to bacteriology, forensic medicine, surgery, gynecology and obstetrics. The only change from the medical curriculum is that homeopathic pharmacology and prescribing is substituted for conventional pharmacology and prescribing. Students then go out to undertake a period of internship. Similar courses have been started more recently at the Natal and Witwatersrand Technikons in South Africa.

With these exceptions, most homeopathic education has taken place outside institutions. One of the most important routes to homeopathic knowledge since the time of Boenninghausen has been self-study. Some of our most distinguished authorities have essentially been gifted amateurs, who devoured every work on homeopathy they could lay their hands on, experimented on their unfortunate families and relations, and came over time to develop a mastery of the art of prescribing by dint of intelligent application and trial and error.

Several individuals, having mastered homeopathy by the self-study route, or by studying with established masters, then went on to found homeopathic schools. There are many examples around the world of schools which are sustained by the drive of one charismatic individual (some of whom in their turn had been educated at small schools). George Vithoulkas and Jeremy Sherr are two of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon. These schools are characterised by the insight and dynamism of their founders, and vary greatly in their educational standards, since the charismatic individuals who found them know a great deal about homeopathy but are not trained in educational techniques as such (I am not commenting here about the examples referred to above). But then you could say exactly the same about your average university academic. University lecturer is one of the few major professions where it has not been considered necessary to undertake training in the profession itself, i.e., the profession of teaching.

Graduates of small schools which are sustained by one teacher can be imbued with a deep understanding of homeopathic theory and therapeutics, but the level of education in the bio-sciences and in clinical skills can be deficient (I am not commenting about any particular school here).