- Examines the success of homeopathic psychiatric asylums in the United
States from the 1870s until 1920
- Focuses on New York's Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital for the
Insane, which had a treatment regime with thousands of successful
outcomes
- Details a homeopathic blueprint for treating mental disorders based
on Talcott's methods, including nutrition and side-effect-free
homeopathic prescriptions
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, homeopathy was popular across all
classes of society. In the United States, there were more than 100
homeopathic hospitals, more than 1,000 homeopathic pharmacies, and 22
homeopathic medical schools. In particular, homeopathic psychiatry
flourished from the 1870s to the 1930s, with thousands of documented
successful outcomes in treating mental illness.
Revealing the astonishing but suppressed history of homeopathic
psychiatry, Jerry M. Kantor examines the success of homeopathic
psychiatric asylums in America from the post-Civil War era until 1920,
including how the madness of Mary Todd Lincoln was effectively treated
with homeopathy at a "sane" asylum in Illinois. He focuses in particular
on New York's Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital, where
superintendent Selden Talcott oversaw a compassionate and holistic
treatment regime that married Thomas Kirkbride's moral treatment
principles to homeopathy. Kantor reveals how homeopathy was pushed aside
by pharmaceuticals, which often caused more harm than good, as well as
how the current critical attitude toward homeopathy has distorted the
historical record.
Offering a vision of mental health care for the future predicated on a
model that flourished for half a century, Kantor shows how we can
improve the care and treatment of the mentally ill and stop the
exponential growth of terminal mental disorder diagnoses that are
rampant today.
