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(1828-1909) Dr. Gachet specialized in homeopathy and was a psychiatrist, an engraver, a Darwinian, a Socialist and a consistently helpful and generous patron and friend to all those artists with whom he came into contact. He bought a house at Auvers-sur-Oise and, in his studio there, became an enthusiastic engraver, partly as a consequence of his earlier contacts with Daumier, Charles Méryon and Rodolphe Bresdin, artists whose styles were reflected in his own.
It was in this studio that several of the Impressionists took up etching: Cézanne produced there an etching of Guillaumin, as well as painting a number of flower pieces arranged in Delft vases for him by the doctor's wife. On the recommendation of Pissarro, Gachet took Vincent van Gogh into his house. Van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise on May 20, 1890, hoping to find a resolution to the physical and psychological problems that plagued him. The artist was optimistic that the doctor would diagnose his baffling illness, but he committed suicide just two months later after a burst of artistic energy which produced a canvas a day. Gachet's great collection of paintings by all the major figures of the movement was given to the state by his son and is now in the Musée d'Orsay.
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Paul Cezanne lived in Auvers-sur-Oise from 1872 to 1874 in this small house rented through Gachet, a homeopathic doctor, amateur artist and collector who died in 1909. |
It is illegal to sell a remedy above a 30C since there is nothing in it, and that would be fraud. 30C is the highest potency and reserved for chronic complaints. So a low potency is 6X to 7C; a medium one is from 8C to 15C; and high potencies are above 15C.
When Boiron first arrived in the U.S., they wanted to start an educational program. The National Center for Homeopathy ( NCH) offered to teach it but it was rejected on three grounds:
The only remedy sold in France that is above 30C is Oscillococcinum which is a proprietary product in the 200th.
Only MDs can practice medicine, including homeopathy otherwise you can be fined or jailed. Moreover the health-care system will not reimburse you if you do not see an MD.
The Ordre des Medecins is the equivalent of the AMA in France and has much of the same power.
Recognition of alternative therapies has been blocked in France because 11% of the parliamentary deputies are members of the medical profession (New York Times. April 11, 1994:4). Because one in five households in Paris uses herbal medicines, the French, like most other people, resort to divergent, pluralistic medical traditions.
A lot of where French homeopathy is now is due to the writings of Leon Vannier who did a lot of work with prescribing on constitutional body types and using "drainage" remedies for organs. None of Kent's writings were translated into French until the 1950's.
Leon Vannier got into power during the Petainiste (collaborationist) period, when he was the official spokesman for homeopathy in France. His son Philippe drew up the law about what was a legal potency after the war in about 1949.
As a matter of fact it is illegal to sell potencies above the 12C; above that remedies are considered as "magisterial preparations" that only MD's can prescribe. However the latter part of the law has fallen into oblivion.
polypharmacyThe practice of prescribing several remedies at one time which does not allow the prescriber to know which particular remedy was acting. Not a classical homeopathic practice. |
pluralistA person who uses polypharmacy. |
The "polypharmacist" prescriptions of Vannier are intimately related to "drainage" theory due to a Swiss homeopath Dr. Nebel, from whom L. Vannier "borrowed" it. The theory says you prescribe 2-3 (or more) remedies daily in the 7-9C to "drain" toxins and a 15-30C "constitutional" remedy once a week for long periods of time.
Kent's "Philosophy" was first translated into French in the 50's by Pierre Schmidt who was a pure Hahnemannian and studied under Gladwin (she was a student of Kent). Schmidt's translation is not very true to the original. He eliminated most of Chapter VIII on Simple Substance, for instance. However Schmidt seems to have been a highly successful prescriber and he started up several classical schools in the French provincial regions (but not in Paris) and in Belgium.
Moreover his journal, Cahiers du Groupement Hahnemannien, had a deep influence on homeopathy in France and is still alive today. Schmidt also helped found the classical International Homeopathic League. Finally, Schmidt contributed his Kent's Repertory hand-annotated by several of Kent's students with additions and corrections to the Barthel & Kuenzli Synthetic Repertory.
The Belgian doctor, Jacques Imberechts, one of Pierre Schmidt's students, helped directly or indirectly influence quite a number of classical homeopaths in France. The Cahiers du Groupement Hahnemannien, a French-language journal, was founded by Schmidt and taken over by his former student Dr. Jacques Baur, a classical homeopath from Lyon.
