Copeland's Cure: homeopathy and the war between conventional and alternative medicine. A new book by Natalie Robbins.

 
“An absolutely dazzling account of the quarrel, over the course of some 150 years, between conventional medicine ( as represented by the AMA) and the alternative practice of homeopathy....There are so many wonderful treats in this book! For starters, there's the portrait of Copeland, a quintessentially optimistic, Bible-quoting, self-improving, platitude-sprouting American boy...Copeland is our whole sweet country concentrated in one flawed human being....Natalie Robins captures all this perfectly and with engaging verve.” -Carolyn See WASHINGTON POST
“<A> social history of the 150-year battle between conventional and alternative medicine in this country....<Robins'> chief purpose is to explain the origins of homeopathy, and to show how a monomaniacal Midwestern doctor named Royal S. Copeland helped legitimize and popularize it.... With colorful examples...Robins shows how Americans' understanding of the physical world around them changed during Copeland's lifetime.” --Liesl Schilllinger, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
 
A NEW BOOK by Natalie Robins —available now from retailers like Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Booksense, & Random House.
 

This is the first of my eight books that was someone else's idea! Over six years ago, a family friend, knowing of my interest in medical matters, suggested to me that I look into the American Medical Association's attitude toward alternative medicine. My obsession as a writer is to tell both sides of complicated, controversial issues, and as I began researching, I saw that this subject might just be the greatest challenge ever to this passion of mine. The AMA was adamantly opposed to alternative medicine from the outset ( the organization was formed in 1847) and the alternative practitioners were on the defensive, hollering and screaming for their very right to exist from that time on. I also saw from my research that most writers did not explain the conflict in ways that seemed to me to illuminate the source of the problems between conventional and alternative medicine, but, rather, joined in the fray, writing in a hollering and screaming way themselves. So I thought that I would give it a try and see if I could take a fair-minded approach.

Royal Samuel Copeland 's name came up once or twice in my early research, but there were no books about this very unusual man! (I soon found out that the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan had the complete collection of his papers.) Copeland was many things, but above all he was a homeopathic eye surgeon, which meant that he dispensed homeopathic remedies to his patients before, after, and even instead of, surgery. These were dilute substances made from minerals, herbs, plants, barks, mushrooms, insects, shellfish, or animal products.The remedies mimic the symptoms of the sick person and are said to bring about relief by "entering" the body's "vital force." Homeopathy, a wholly western invention , was brought to America from Germany in 1827, nearly forty years before the discovery that germs cause disease. Today it is one of the most popular - as well as one of the most controversal - alternatives in use around the world.

Copeland, who would become a medical school dean, Commissionerof Health in New York City during the horrific flu pandemic of 1918, and a U.S.Senator from New York, was trained in the late 1800s in a course no different from that of a conventional doctor. Always a savvy politician, he believed that homeopathy and conventional medicine could - and should - live happily side by side, and he always kept up a good relationship with the AMA (despite that fact that it kept a secret file on his activities.) His often maverick, colorful life seemed to me just the one to dramatize the conflicts between conventional and alternative medicine I was learning about. I was not planning to write a full biography of Copeland but rather to use only the parts of his life that illuminated the scientific, educational, and political issues as I saw them. I worried at first that the plethora of medical facts I would need to mount my "case" might overwhelm the storytelling aspect, but I decided to take the risk, because getting it "right" ( meaning, to me, even-handed) was more important than getting it "cinematic"( meaning, to me, heavy-handed.) Copeland would probably agree I made the right choice, although he might have enjoyed being on stage more often. The man loved being the center of attention.

Copeland was always more than an ordinary doctor and Senator. He was a bit of a showman, he advertised products, he owned businesses ( among them, restaurants that served healthy, fresh foods, and a laboratory that tested various products.) He wrote a famous newspaper column about health-related subjects, and he also wrote books about health and exercise - even using himself to model the various exercise positions he was promoting. Still, his crowning achievement as a US Senator was to sneak the homeopathic pharmacopeia into the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 act, thus giving homeopathic remedies permanent legal status.

In the last three chapters I bring the story into the present, and I describe the role of homeopathy today and how some of its practitioners are now adhering to the strictest standards of scientific research - controlled, randomized, double-blind clinical studies.

 
©2005 Natalie Robins. All rights reserved.