Thomas Mann: Eros and literature

This is a major contribution to the expanding field of the history of alternative medicine in Germany. Martin Dinges, historian and archivist of the Homeopathy Archives of the Robert Bosch Institute for the History of Medicine, demands a new approach towards the history of homeopathy in order to overcome the traditional interest, which concentrated mainly on Samuel Hahnemann and the effect of certain remedies. Future research in this field should concentrate on three aspects: the significance of patients for the spread of homeopathy, the role homeopathy played in the health care market, and the importance of patients' and homeopaths' organizations for the rather different pace and success of institutionalized homeopathy around the world. Homeopathy, therefore, can be understood only when analysed within the political, social and cultural context of society. This publication, with contributions from authors of different backgrounds ranging from homeopathy to pharmacy, veterinary medicine, social history, anthropology and ethnology, covers three broad aspects. Based on Samuel Hahnemann's case books, Robert Jutte analyses Hahnemann's patients, while Reinhard Hickmann concentrates on the history of one patient, Antonie Volkmann, who was treated by Hahnemann for nine years. Ute Schumann looks into the socio-cultural background of the popularization of homeopathy in India. Dorte Staudt researched the history of a patients' organization between the 1870s and the 1930/40s and shows its importance for the spread of homeopathy. Eberhard Wolff deals with the same questions, but from the perspective of the market for homeopathic remedies. The second part deals with several nonacademic healers. Elisabeth Hacker-Strobusch reconstructs the background of the earlynineteenth-century homeopath, Johann David Steinestel; Ingeborg Streuber writes about Arthur Lutze, one of the most successful nineteenth-century authors on homeopathy. Thomas Faltin compares the career of Eugen Wenz, who based his approach to homeopathy on religion, with that of other healers. Ingrid KannengieBer's paper deals with a neglected aspect in the history of homeopathy, i.e. the treatment of animals. The repeated assumption of a boom in homeopathy is critically analysed by Reinhart Schuppel and Thomas Schlich, who both reach a rather disillusioning conclusion. The third part concentrates on institutions and publications like the journal Hygea, where Karl-Heinz Faber shows how this journal became the focus of a critical position in homeopathy towards Hahnemann. Joachim Willfahrt examines the nineteenth-century market for homeopathic publications. Reinhart Schuippel deals with the institutionalization of homeopathy in the United States. Finally, Heinz Eppenich studies the history of homeopathic clinics in Germany. While this volume is not a comprehensive history of homeopathy, it does give the reader an interesting insight into homeopathy and opens new questions for future research. As Dinges admits in his introduction, the question of an interdependence between religion and the spread of homeopathy, as well as gender issues, has yet to be analysed. Unfortunately, most of the over seventy illustrations are very poor reproductions.