An Interesting Letter from a convert…..
How I became a homeopathBy Dr John Henry Clarke, MD, United Kingdom
Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to reader if I state at the outset of how my own conversion to homeopathy came about. As is usually the case, I knew nothing whatsoever about homeopathy when I took a degree in surgery, since it is rarely mentioned by professors in the ordinary medical school, and then only to be misrepresented.
After my graduation as a western medical doctor at Edinburg Medical School, by the advise of the late Dr Angus Macdonald ( one of the best friends I ever had ), I took a voyage to New Zealand in charge of emigrants.
On my return, having fixed on Liverpool as a likely field in which to start practice, I asked Dr Macdonald to introduce me to some of leading doctors in that city. This he promised to do, and eventually he did - I have the letter to this day.
They were never presented, for the reasons which will be appreciated. The relatives with whom I was staying happens to be a homeopath, and they suggested that I might do worse then to go to Homeopathic Dispensary at Hardman Street, Liverpool and see what was being done there.
As the letter came not, by way of utilizing my time I went. Like Caesar, I not only 'went', but I 'saw', " but here the parallel ended - I did not conquer; instead homeopathy conquered me !
I may say that at this period, having absorbed over 80 % ( if marks go for anything) of the drug-lore Sir Robert Christian had to impart, and having had sufficient opportunity for testing its value in practice, I had come pretty near the conclusion of Oliver Webdell Holmes saying, " If all drugs were cast into the sea, it would be so much better for man and so much the worst for the fish."
I believed then ( and belief has become rather fashionable since ) that the chief function of a medical man was to find out what was the matter with people - if he could; and supply them with common sense - if he happened to posses any.
With duty to treat people; to cure them was out of question; and it would be the better for honesty if he made no pretence to it.
After few weeks of observation at the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary, a case was presented to me in private. A small boy of five, a relative of my own, was brought to me by his mother. Two years before, he had been badly scratched on the forehead by a cat, and when the scratches healed, a crops of warts appeared on the site of them, and there they remained up to that time in spite of different treatment by allopathic doctor.
As an allopath I could do no more than he, so I turned to homeopathy to see if that could help me. I consulted the authorities, and found that the principal drug which is credited to producing crops of warts is Thuja Occidentalis.
I ordered this, more by way of experiment than expecting much result; but I said, if there was truth in homeopathy, it ought to cure. In a few days improvement was manifest; In three weeks the warts were al gone. Rightly or wrongly I attributed, and still attribute the result to Thuja, through it will no doubt be said that charms have done the same way.
Very well, id nay one will give me a system of charms that I can use with precision and produce with such definite effects, I shall be very glad to try it. As it was, I concluded that if homeopathy could give me results like that, homeopathy was the system for me.
Yours faithfully
Dr J.H. Clarke, Liverpool, England.
