British Homceopathic Journal January 1990, Vol. 79, pp. 3-9

Where have we been, where are we going?

LT COL M. C. BARRACLOUGH, OBE, MBIM

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Firstly, may I say how honoured I am to have been asked to give this Sessional Lecture. I have certainly not known of any lay person having given a lecture to the Faculty of Medicine before. I was astonished to be asked, and accepted with diffidence. I asked Dr Rose what he would like me to talk about and he replied 'anything you like'. I am certainly not qualified to talk about medical homoeopathy and have always avoided becoming involved in medical matters or taking sides in medical disagree- ments. As things are at the present and my employment draws to an end, it seems to me that this lecture has to be my official valedictory address. So it shall be then! I shall briefly run through some of the highlights of the past eight- een years that I have enjoyed being with the Fac- ulty and the Trust and then speak about some issues which are going to be very important in the future.

I know that some of you have been around as long as, if not longer, than I, and I ask you to bear with me if I bore you. But there are a lot of others who have no idea how things were and it is mainly to those I speak to now.

Early days I am the first full-time paid Secretary which the Trust and Faculty have ever had and I believe I am the only one in the world. The Faculty is also the only hom0eopathic medical organization in the world with a full time secretariat. I first saw the job advertised when I was on a business management course in Marylebone Road early in 1971. It was the first time I had ever heard of hom0eopathy and the first time I had ever seen the word in writing. I had an initial interview with the Chairman of the Hom~eopathic Trust, Sam Goodenough, and liked him so much that I knew immediately I wanted to work with him.

Secretary of the Homceopathic Trust and The Faculty of Hom0eopathy. Sessional Lecture, 5 October 1989.

At this stage I must say a word about Sam Goodenough for the enlightenment of those who did not know him. He was senior partner of Knight Frank & Rutley, the Estate Agents, whose headquarters are in Hanover Square. Sam had become Chairman of the Hom0eo- pathic Trust following the death of Sir John Weir. He decided to put hom0eopathy on the map and took a calculated risk. It was he who employed me in the first instant and also imposed his will on the Faculty Council to accept me as their Secretary. I have to say that, up to this time, the Faculty had only an Honorary Sec- retary, a doctor, John Raeside. The Trust's part- time Secretary in those days was called, by the Faculty, the Education Secretary. He was only allowed to be present at Faculty Council Meet- ings while education was discussed. As soon as this was over he had to leave the room. No lay person could listen to medical matters being discussed.

It was with some trepidation, as you can imag- ine, that I attended my first Faculty Council meeting. Before my appointment I naturally set out to find out about hom0eopathy. I went to a lady doctor in London, who was a long standing friend, and asked her what she knew about homoeopathy, as I had been offered a job in this connection. She knew I was out of work so she said 'Are you starving yet?' to which I replied 'No, not yet'. She paused and then said quite simply 'Then don't take the job. Sir John Weir killed the King!' Going home in the train I met another very old friend whom I had not seen for years and years. He asked me what I was doing and I was loath to admit I was taking a job with the Homoeopathic Trust. Somehow it seemed a dirty word. I have to say that my friend was a born countryman and he worked in the County Telephone Exchange on night shifts so that he could hunt his pack of beagles by day. I grudg- ingly admitted my new employment and sud- denly my friend was galvanized into paroxysms of joy! His family had been brought up on

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homoeopathy for generations and his hounds had nothing else! And so I started and I became a great friend of Sam Goodenough and his whole family. He died very suddenly at the age of 53 from a cerebral haemorrhage. I heard about his death when I was on holiday in Gibraltar in July 1983 and I have to admit that my life and my job have never been quite the same since.

Since his death I and my wife kept in touch with his widowed mother, Dorothea, Lady Goodenough, until she herself died. Sam's sis- ter, Mary, still keeps in touch with me and is interested in the affairs of the Trust. Sam was a very talented painter and took his brushes with him on all his business trips to Scotland and around the World. He left a prolific collection of his oils and water colours to his sister. She organ- ized an exhibition in a London gallery, sold most of them and gave the money to the Trust--a sum in excess of s I have three of his water colours hanging in my drawing room at home. One of his other talents was as an organist and he always played the organ in his local village church at Filkins near Lechlade.

The Faculty I started work at the end of 1971. My salary was s and I had been told by Sam Goodenough that I was being paid out of capital and my employment was only guaranteed for two years. There was only one secretary or typist in those days and my predecessor came into the office once a week carrying the office papers in a string bag. I had a typist who was a good lay hom0eo- path but appallingly bad at everything else! I had to keep all the accounts and books myself. Courses in those days were held in the classroom at Hahnemann House. A big course was fifteen persons! On the Faculty side I learnt the ropes from Dr John Raeside, the Honorary Secretary. The office at Hahnemann House had only recently been established there. It had been in the Hospital. John came in one morning on a wet summer's day and complained that there was no hook on the door to hang his mackintosh. I went out that evening, bought a smart chromium- plated clothes hook and screwed it to the door myself and looked forward with pleasure to John's reaction. He never saw it nor did he ever use his hook. He and fifteen others were killed the next day in the Trident crash on take-off from Heathrow over Staines.

Those sixteen were on their way to Brussels for an International Homceopathic Medical League Congress. The cream of homoeopathy

had been lost, physicians, pharmacists, nurses-- all gone. One of these was a young doctor, Wil- liam Kadleigh, a friend of Dr John Hughes- Games from Bristol. His parents set up a fund in his memory, the William Kadleigh Memorial Fund. It now helps to subsidize the teaching of doctors in the Bristol area where his parents still live. At the time of his death he was studying hom0eopathy with Dr Margery Blackie who I will mention later. His parents are in constant touch with John Hughes-Games and support us in all our endeavours. I was really left in the deep end or up the proverbial creek without a paddle! Another of those killed was Dudley Everitt (and his wife) who was the owner of Nelsons, which at that time was the only manufacturer of any sig- nificance. Weleda had not grown to the size it is now. Dudley had left a will in which he stipulated that his grandchildren should be left with suf- ficient funds to ensure that they had a high stan- dard of living. The executors decided that the only way this could be done was to sell Nelsons on the open market.

The Hom0eopathic Trust immediately went into negotiations to purchase Nelsons in order that homeeopathy should survive. If this had taken place the Trust would literally have gone broke and none of the developments which have since taken place would have been possible. As it was, a benefactor appeared out of the blue and bought Nelsons, preserving it for the exclusive manufacture of homceopathic medicine, as it is today.

Political stuggles Prior to 1974 all the hom0eopathic hospitals had their own independent management commit- tees. Here in London the hospital had a paid Secretary and Treasurer. The Secretary was a senior Group Secretary, Aubrey Young, who was responsible directly to the North West Metropolitan Board of Health. As the Royal London Homceopathic Hospital (RLHH) was the only hospital in the so-called Grou p we had him exclusively to ourselves! The Management Committee were, apart from the medical con- sultants, all lay people, volunteers and unpaid. They knew every person in the hospital by his or her Christian name, were devotees of the hospi- tal and hom0eopathy and the whole thing worked perfectly. The first re-organization of the Health Service became effective in 1974 and our Management Committee was disbanded in spite of pleas to retain it and have central fund- ing. Instead we came under a newly created

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Camden and Islington Area Health Authority. In between the lines of communication were cre- ated a 'Region' and a 'District ' . Management immediately became remote, impersonal and top-heavy with bureaucracy. Our hospitals have never been the same since. Morale plummeted, but the Faculty and Trust were steadily and quietly growing, not only in size but financially, and most importantly in status and aUthority.

This is an appropriate moment to remember that tonight we are celebrating the 140th Anni- versary of this Hospital. It was founded in 1849 by Dr Frederick Foster Harvey Quin. It opened its doors in Golden Square on 10 April 1850 and moved here into Great Ormond Street in 1859. The original building was demolished and the foundation stone of this building was laid on 23 June 1893. The part you are in now was known as the Henry Tyler Wing and it was started in June 1909.

The growth of our status and authority, which I have just mentioned, began when the Hah- nemann Hospital in Liverpool was closed by the Authority, but only after a long drawn out battle fought by the Trust and the Faculty. The battle was lost after a two-year fight in 1976, but in the losing we learned lessons in diplomacy and nego- tiation which were to stand us in good stead in the future. We ran into further problems over the appointment of a Consultant Physician at the new Department of Homoeopathic Medicine in the Liverpool Clinic, which was the alternative service set up after the Hahnemann Hospital was closed down. This battle involved the hierarchy of the medical profession, the Postgraduate Deans and the General Medical Council. The candidates standing for the appointment were both turned down by the statutory Appoint- ments Advisory Committee because, although they both had their MRCP, their experience had been mainly homoeopathic and neither had stud- ied a specialty in a 'recognized training specialty or hospital', that is to say, recognized by the GMC. Through our previous negotiations a net- work of contacts had been established with Civil Servants in the Department of Health and we gained direct access to the Minister who at that time ordered that another Appointments Com- mittee should sit. This time an appointment was made.

1974 was quite a year! Another breakthrough was that the reorganization saw the birth of Community Health Councils (CHCs) and I was appointed (not elected) by the new North East Thames Regional Health Authority as a founder

member of South Camden CHC, 'representing homoeopathic interests'. I remained a member for ten years, which is the maximum statutory period. I hope that it may be possible for my suc- cessor to become a member of what is now the Bloomsbury CHC. 1974 also saw the 125th anni- versary of the RLHH and in the following year the Trust held a big reception at London House, Mecklenburgh Square, for its patron HRH The Duke of Gloucester and his wife.

The next two years saw the most intense nego- tiations on the future of the RLHH, and Dr David Owen, then Minister of Health, proposed the setting up of a Special Health Authority responsible for the hospitals on what he called 'The Island Site': The National Hospital for Ner- vous Diseases, the Great Ormond Street Hospi- tal for Sick Children and the RLHH. This involved negotiations with Sir Leslie Williams for the National and Mrs Audrey Callaghan for the Children's Hospital: Mrs Callaghan was the wife of the then Prime Minister. A feasibility study was eventually completed and sent to the Minister. David Owen was then promoted to Foreign Secretary and his successor, Roland Moyle, put the study on the shelf where it pre- sumably still is to this day.

Fighting prejudice At about this time we gained a real friend and staunch supporter of our cause, namely Mr Tom Ellis, MP for Wrexham. In the spring of 1977 a proposal was made to close the Liverpool Clinic which housed the Outpatient Department of the Department of Homoeopathic Medicine and move it into the new Royal Liverpool Hospital which was nearing completion. At a meeting of all the Liverpool Consultants which Dr Martin, the Consultant Hom0eopathic Physician and a Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians, attended, the matter of the Homoeopathic Out- patients was discussed. Dr Martin was asked to withdraw. On his return he was told, and I am quoting from the Minutes of the Meeting, ' that the Outpatient Department was not welcome in the new teaching hospital, that no undergradu- ates should be exposed to any unorthodox medi- cine before qualification, that the very existence of an hom0eopathic clinic in the hospital would cause alarm to both doctors and patients alike, that no undergraduate would be allowed to sit in at an homoeopathic clinic and that the pharmacy would not be allowed to stock expensive and unheard of homceopathic remedies'. Dr Martin was then told that he himself and any other

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hom0eopathic physicians could not be accepted as professional colleagues in the teaching hospital!

These remarks were luckily recorded in detail in the minute book and circulated to the consult- ants in the Medical Division. The Minutes, con- fidential or not, were leaked to Tom Ellis by me, and within a few weeks there was a full debate in the House of Commons. Tom Ellis described the behaviour of the Medical Division as 'sheer blind prejudice and bigotry, crass ignorance and highly questionable ethical behaviour more fit- ting to the minutes of the Wapping Bargees Mutual Benefit Society'! In replying, the Minis- ter acknowledged that 'Hom0eopathy is a legit- imate form of medical practice, otherwise it would not be justifiable to allow its provision under the NHS if we had any doubts about its acceptability and that it has a long and honour- able tradition',

Later Tom Ellis presented the Speaker of the House with a petition in support of hom0eopathy by 118,000 people. During the next few years our political clout grew and expanded. We gained a right of direct access to the Minister, we had discussions with Sir Patrick Nairne, the Chief Civil Servant and Permanent Secretary to the DHSS. We talked to Sir John Richardson, the Chairman of the Council for Postgraduate Medical Education. We have resisted success- fully attempts and threats to close our hospitals here in London and in Bristol and Tunbridge Wells.

The Trust's work Slowly but surely the finances of the Homeeo- pathic Trust have improved, mainly from lega- cies but also from good investment policy. The first such legacy came early On in my time. I remember having a discussion with the lady in question at the Cowdray Club in Cavendish Square. It was exclusively a ladies club and is now the Royal College of Nursing. The lady in question died in the Isle of Man and left us all her money and her house. She was a widow and said she thought she was worth about s She died unexpectedly soon after this meeting and it took the Trust several years to find her money which was all over the world. When collected it amounted to s

I have had enquiries from many members of the Faculty asking me to explain what the Hom0eopathic Trust does and what it is for. Obviously these people have not read the Fac- ulty of Homoeopathy Act 1950! It says in the Act:

and whereas the provision of facilities for the con- tinuance of homoeopathic research, education and practice is likely to be the responsibility of persons having interest in hom0eopathic science and its development in the new administration under the Act by reason of the said circumstances a Trust was established in 1948 under the name of The Homceo- pathic Research & Educational Trust for the advancement of the teaching and practice of hom0eopathy and for research in matters relating to hom0eopathy.

The Trust pays me and all the Faculty staff. It pays the rent for the Faculty offices. In 1989/90 it has budgeted to spend s on education, s on research and s goes to the Scot- tish Branch of the Faculty to help them run their excellent courses. s has also g o n e to Northern Ireland to help establish a clinic in Bel- fast. This expenditure alone far exceeds income, so that we are spending capital. We have been extremely lucky recently in receiving very large legacies. When I first came, our capital was less than s now it is in excess of 1�89 million. But I have to warn you that we are not well off in this day and age of enormous costs and rapid inflation. The Trust cannot afford to diminish its capital and hence its income. There is no way it can continue to spend at the present level. If it does it will die from self-strangulation and star- vation! Somehow we have to increase our income. By spending we increase education and train more doctors. As the membership of the Faculty grows, so the Faculty becomes more independent financially. There will come a time when the Faculty can stand on its own feet finan- cially. In this context, I must acknowledge the results of an appeal I have recently made to Fac- ulty members to help the Trust by Deeds of Covenant. The response has been most satisfac- toryand I thank all those who have subscribed to such a worthy cause--the future of medical hom0eopathy.

All this brings me to talk about the future. We have made progress, our courses are better, they are attended by more people, they are recog- nized under Section 63. We have more tech- nology, a thriving Collection Data Programme going on, a sharing of information linked by computer.

Characters I have known But these things do tend to be impersonal and this is a danger. We must not become the ser- vants of our own technology. One of the greatest and most enjoyable things about my work has been the people I meet or perhaps I should say

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the characters and eccentrics I have met, as most of them, though not all, have regrettably died. We are not breeding characters any more. We need to do this. I have served seven Presidents, many of them eccentric. Charles Kennedy and his obsession with the Mustard Gas Trials, Geof- frey Martin, that staunch Huguenot who insisted on writing me notes on pieces of cardboard torn off old shoe boxes and totally unreadable! He even managed to grow a moustache and got mis- taken for Groucho Marx!

And there were others who were Presidents before my time, like Margery Blackie, Physician to the Queen, and her friend Musette Majendie, who were eccentric to the extreme and had an influence on us all which still lives long after their deaths. Margery was Dean when I arrived. She lived in a world that few of us knew, an extra- ordinary personality, bringing an almost Edwar- dian view of life into our existence. She expected total obedience and respect. She practised hom0eopathy with absolute confidence, she was totally convinced of its efficacy and she managed to have the respect and rapport of the highest of the hierarchy in the medical profession. She was so convinced of her principles that there were no allowances made for any variations or deviations from her own form of practice. Her disciples were numerous, many remain, but many were discarded for daring to question her principles of practice. She was an amazing fund raiser, balls at Musette's home, Hedingham Castle, a reception at the Guild Hall with Her Majesty the Queen at her side. A truly amazing character who did so much for homoeopathy but also, I hope unknown to herself, some harm. She sought to promote her own form of hom~eopathy and sought to destroy anyone who deviated one degree from her own course. Her memory remains with many of us and her influence will remain for years to come. She made many friends and some enem- ies, one of whom still writes to me and only a week or two ago accused me, yet again, of con- sorting with Margery Blackie by refusing to per- suade her to make her change her statements in her book The Patient Not The Cure on her use of the bowel nosodes. I have had abuse, extreme abuse, in my career here, as well as great happi- ness. It is such a sad thing that now, in this day and age, we cannot all work in harmony.

I quote from an inscription on the Church Bells in my own County town of Colchester:

Placed on high, we serve the town, Beneath the Crown, beneath the Sky, Differing in size, in note, and weight

Yet small or great, we harmonize. With measured speech, well timed and true, Our message due, we tell to each. Brief, dear, and bold, we say our say, And then straight way our peace we hold. O mortal Race, our lesson learn, Each has his turn, and time and place.

Let us please remember this in all we do. Let us ring out this message to all our members.

I trust that our present generation of those in the seats of power both in the Faculty and the Trust will in time become characters to be remembered and characters who will stamp their own impressions on the outside world. There are some things which I believe are major tasks fac- ing the Faculty in the future. I wish on this occa- sion to say that I am going to express my personal opinion on these matters and not official opinion.

Looking forward First, there is the question of lay practice. We have been discussing it for years and have got no- where. Lay practitioners are with us to stay. You cannot sweep them under the carpet. Someone has got to get the Government to take action and to do this we have to make the Government take notice and understand the problem. Some lay practitioners are good, some are bad, some are charlatans. Nearly all of them could do more harm than good in certain circumstances and there are practical examples of this.

In my opinion lay practice must be recognized not by us, the Faculty, but by Government legis- lation. All lay practitioners should be licensed only after having reached a certain standard and passed examinations. This could be done by the Society of Homteopaths which is the only lay organization setting proper standards. Any per- son who practises without a licence or without being State Registered should be prosecuted.

Ultimately I would like to see something like the proposed ideas put forward by Parliament in South Africa. That is that potential lay prac- titioners must go to medical school in the same way as a medical student, but they would only do four years, followed by one year of practical hom~eopathy. They would then be State Regis- tered and restricted in what they could treat, or could not treat, such as terminal disease, vene- real disease. They would possibly not be allowed to carry out any internal examinations, take blood or give injections. These people would then be a genuine help to the doctors. A hom0eo- pathic doctor would, of course, do his full time at medical school plus a year of hom0eopathy and

British Homceopathic Journal

the homeeopathic training would be at the medical school and part of the normal curricu- lum. This message must be got over with the ulti- mate aim of every medical school in this country teaching homoeopathy.

The international scene The next thing which I think important is the EEC in 1992 and Europe. I know some of you are very actively concerned with this--particu- larly Dickson Mabon and Peter Fisher, both of whom have made several visits to Strasbourg and Brussels. But we have here an ideal chance to become the leaders in European hom~eo- pathy. The contacts are there and we are the only country which has a proper administrative set-up and the only country with homoeopathic hospi- tals. This needs working on and it will be hard work. Just as there is dissent nationally so there is dissent in Europe. The European Pharmac- opoeia is an example. There are too many organ- izations amongst doctors, veterinary surgeons, pharmacists and manufacturers all doing their own thing nationally and internationally. There is an opportunity to take the lead and unite. Unity is most important. It is the one thing that prevents homeeopathy going forward and we are guilty just as much, if not more, than the other European nations of the EEC.

We should try and send more people to the International Homeeopathic Medical League Congresses. We are privileged to have Dr Charles Kennedy as the President of the Inter- national League at this moment. At one time the Archives of the League were supposed to be coming to London to be looked after by the Fac- ulty. This should be done, and I am glad to say, now will be done, London could become the centre of European homoeopathy or even world homoeopathy. Do not be complacent on the issue of Europe. There is an opportunity to be taken, Let us take it. We should also put in a bid to have an International League Congress in this country at the next opportunity. Perhaps you do not know, but all full Members and Fellows are fully paid up members of the International Homeeopathic Medical League. This is another service provided at first by the Trust but now by the Faculty. If it was left to individuals to join I doubt if there would be more than half a dozen members of the League. As it is, we now have considerable voting powers if needed!

The homGeopathic hospitals Finally, I want to say a word about our hospitals. There is now th%~ possibility of becoming self-

governing. I spoke, at the beginning, of the old days when we had our own Management Com- mittee. I am one of the few who experienced those times, if only for a very short time, but the hospital shone. It did so literally, you could see your face reflected in the floors, but it shone in other ways. It was alive, it had a vibrant morale which you could feel. I understand that the situ- ation today is not the same in every hospital and that self-government would not be suitable for Glasgow or Liverpool, at least not at this time. Tunbridge Wells is also in a different and difficult position where the pros and cons of self-govern- ment are almost equal. The RLHH and the Bristol Homoeopathic are taking active steps towards self-government and here in London the North East Thames Regional Health Auth- ority has now invited us to meet for discussions in order to take our proposal forward. This shows a healthy sign that North East Thames Regional Health Authority is sympathetic towards our proposal. The practical side of taking this forward will mean hard work and I would like to acknowledge all that Dickson Mabon and Mike Jenkins have already done. But it cannot be done by two people. We have to show that we can produce the people on the ground who can manage the hospital and this is not going to be easy. We need good lay people with business acumen, we need accountants. I ask all of you who practise in London or the Home Counties to enquire of suitable patients if they would be prepared to help and to let Michael Jenkins know. It is voluntary work and would eventually only involve meeting probably once a month.

Epilogue [ am sad to be approaching the end of my time as Secretary of the Hom~eopathic Trust and the Faculty of Homeeopathy, but I can only agree with Major David Butter, President of the Trust, who has written to me and says, 'I fully appre- ciate it is sad when retirement comes along, but I think you should remember you have contrib- uted so much to the Faculty, the Trust and to hom0eopathy generally that you deserve a rest and I am sure you yourself feel that the daily slog up to London is getting very trying. There is always tomorrow and fresh challenges'. I hope that the Faculty and Trust will face those chal- lenges together.

I would like to pay one final tribute to David Butter. This is another example of amazing coincidences. I first met Major Butter in 1948

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before I was married. At that time I was a young Captain and had just been appointed Adjutant of The Scottish Horse, a Yeomanry Regiment affiliated to my own Regiment. The Colonel of this regiment was the Duchess of Athol, widow of the 8th Duke of Athol who formed the Scot- tish Horse in 1902 to fight in the South African War. The Duchess died in about 1950 and her house 'Eastwood', on the banks of the River Tay at Dunkeld where my Headquarters was, was bought by Major Butter. I had been a paying guest at Eastwood before I was married in 1949.

Major Butter is Lord Lieutenant of Perthshire

and Kinross. I am happy to say that he has been a most active President and although really an honorary position he has always given me trem- endous support and encouragement. During the Liverpool crisis when the hospital was closed he was very active and visited Liverpool on several occasions. I wish to send my personal thanks to him for all his help and support. I have so many people to thank and so many friends made.

Thank you all for listening to me, and thank you, David Spence and Barry Rose, for giving me this opportunity of speaking to the Faculty this evening.