Beginnings

Homeopathy has been practised by individual practitioners throughout Australia since the 1840s.

The history of medicine during the formative years of the Australian colonies revolves around the fact that, apart from in the main cities, there were very few people who had formal qualifications as medical practitioners. People were very reliant on whatever assistance they could find, including self-help via domestic medicine chests. These people might be termed ‘lay prescribers’ rather than ‘lay practitioners’, in that they provided assistance for their family and friends in their community, but they did not establish themselves as practitioners.

There were also opportunities for people who did not have formal medical qualifications to establish practices. Some had medical expertise and successes in treatment, regardless of their lack of formal qualifications, while others were obviously charlatans taking advantage of the total lack of regulations in the newly-formed colonies.

First practitioners

The first homeopath to come to Australia was Englishman Dr Stephen Simpson, who wrote one of the earliest books on homeopathy in English. He arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1840, but after six months there he moved to Queensland, to become a government administrator. (1) Dr William Sherwin, a practitioner who was born in Australia and gained his qualifications in England, was the first ‘home-grown’ doctor to use homeopathy, and it is likely that he was Australia’s second homeopath. A later publication by Dr Sherwin indicated that he commenced examining and using homeopathy around 1842 or perhaps earlier. (2)

Some missionaries deliberately learned homeopathy so that they could help with the physical as well as the spiritual needs of their people, although they did not set up official medical practices. Dom Salvado established a Benedictine monastery at New Norcia in Western Australia, where local indigenous Australians and settlers were treated using homeopathy. Baptist clergyman, Rev Benjamin Wilson, studied homeopathic medicine in England, with the aim of becoming a medical missionary. On the voyage to Brisbane he treated many conditions using homeopathic medicines, and apparently his treatments were more successful than those of the ship’s doctor. Rev Marcus Brownrigg, Church of England minister, used homeopathy to treat his own family in Tasmania and the indigenous Australians whom he met on his many journeys to the Furneaux group of islands in Bass Strait.  Rev Holden was a Church of England clergyman who studied medicine and homeopathy privately for over seven years in England, and provided medical treatment for the poor when working in parishes in Victoria, South Australia and country New South Wales, where he found that there was no doctor in the town. Henry Backhaus, a Roman Catholic priest, used homeopathy to treat people in Victoria’s goldfields. (3), (4)

Supporters and users of homeopathy included many of Australia’s notable people – archbishops, members of parliament, premiers, rich pastoralists and businessmen, and their wives.

Homeopathic dispensaries and hospitals

Soon free homeopathic dispensaries for the poor were established in Victoria (Geelong, Melbourne and Ballarat), Adelaide in South Australia, and Sydney in New South Wales. (5) The Melbourne Homeopathic Hospital, established in 1876, was the first homeopathic hospital in Australia. (It was eventually renamed as Prince Henry’s Hospital.) There followed the Hobart Homeopathic Hospital (1899), the Launceston Homeopathic Hospital (1900), eventually renamed St Luke’s, and the Sydney Homeopathic Hospital (1902). (6) The leading figure in the establishment of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital was a homeopath, Dr Allan Campbell. At that time, three of its six medical officers were homeopaths. (7)

These hospitals operated successfully for over 60 years until the late 1920s when they began to experience increasing difficulties in continuing to operate. Contributing factors for their demise included the advent of antibiotics, increasing opposition from the orthodox medical establishment and the difficulty of obtaining qualified homeopathic staff.

Revival of homeopathy

The revival of homeopathy in Australia over the past 50 years is part of a story of world-wide changes in spiritual values and public perceptions regarding health. The past decades have seen an accelerating interest in complementary healthcare, including homeopathy.