What people are saying...

"Physician, medical educator, newspaper columnist, commissioner of health in New York City, U.S.Senator, and indefatigable champion of homeopathy - Royal Copeland was a remarkably influential figure in the history of American medicine. We owe to Copeland the recognition of the homeopathic pharmacopoeia in the Food and Drug Act of 1938. Natalie Robins deftly restores him to life. "Copeland's Cure" evenhandedly illuminates the controversies over alternative medicine that persist to this day. An engaging, informative, and valuable book. "
Daniel J. Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Yale University

"...an absolutely dazzing account....There are so many wonderful treats in this book!...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

These days, there is standard medical practice, the usual thing that graduates of medical schools are engaged in, and there are many alternatives: acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal remedies, naturopathy, aromatherapy, and many more. Alternative medicine, to the disgust of many doctors and skeptics, has gotten some official level of approval; there's the Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the National Institutes of Health, and financial approval shown by coverage from many insurance companies. Among the most famous of such therapies is homeopathy, so it is timely to read this book. It is mostly a biography of Royal Samuel Copeland, a homeopath, conventional doctor, eye surgeon, Health Commissioner of New York City, and U.S. Senator, but Copeland's constant efforts for his beloved homeopathy encompassed the practice's heyday. The controversies he battled are the same ones that alternative medicines are experiencing today, making Robins's detailed look at Copeland's life useful background for current clashes. Robins says that she has tried to give both sides of the argument about homeopathy, but admits that "scientific proof is only a distant possibility." Even one of the modern homeopaths profiled here says, "I find myself in agreement with those editors of the New England Journal of Medicine who wrote that there is not alternative and conventional medicine, there is just good and bad medicine." The bustling, energetic, platitudinous, and self-serving Royal Copeland revealed in these entertaining pages would certainly agree; but evidence that homeopathy goes into the "good medicine" category is lacking.
Rob Hardy, SKEPTIC Bibliography

"Fascinating history of homeopathy in America and Seantor Royal Royal Copeland, who spearheaded the federal law that protects it."
Consumer Health Library:Recommended Reference Book

"Robins subtly shows us the complexity of the human psyche in this narrative of medical history."
Jerome Groopman, MD in The Boston Globe

"fascinating...superb information gathering....important..."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Few outside of the medical community may understand the difference between allopathic medicine and homeopathic medicine. It is likely that even fewer are aware of the history of homeopathy, or of where it stands in relation to, say, chiropractic or holistic medicine. Robins' comprehensive account lays all that out around the life and times of...Royal Samuel Copeland....Paying careful attention to detail, Robins explains the birth of the formal practice of homeopathy... Robins answers every point in support of homeopathy with an equally credible counterpoint in support of allopathy...."
BOOKLIST, American Library Association

"Anyone remotely interested in the relationship between today's traditional medicine and various forms of alternative medicine will be fascinated with Copeland's Cure.This well-written book by Natalie Robins combines two interrelated stories: the century-long struggle of homeopaths with the American Medical Association, and the fascinating life of Royal Copeland (1868-1938), at one time the leading proponent of homeopathy in the United States."
Syracuse New Times Net

"A truly excellent book on the life of Royal Copeland, MD. He was quite a fascinating man."
Dana Ullman, Homeopathic Education Services

"Natalie Robins has written her story with the same verve and spirit with which Royal Samuel Copeland (1868-1938) went through life....This book has already gone where few homeopathy books have gone before, into the literary pages of the intellectual papers....Read this enlightening mainstream book."
Francis Treuherz, THE HOMEOPATH (The Society of Homeopaths, UK.)