EDITORIAL


The American Foundation for Homoeopathic operates such a school, and has done so almost continuously for eighteen years. Each year a six weeks course in good homoeopathic philosophy, materia medica and prescribing, as taught by Hahnemann in the Organon, is given. This effort deserves the active support of every homoeopath, both as to prospective students and financial aid.


Medical education has become such a tremendous study that in the standard course of from two to three years premedical, and four years actual medical education, the student acquires only a good working knowledge of the fundamentals of medicine and surgery. Upon graduation he is supposed to take from one to three years hospital training, or to enter upon research and postgraduate work with the ultimate aim of perhaps specializing in some particular branch f medical art. His student time is so completely taken up with learning how to diagnose and recognize disease that little emphasis can be placed upon its treatment.

All though the history of therapeutics since earliest ages the treatment of disease has been constantly changing, and we have every right to expect that it will continue to do so, as it has not been based upon any fixed law of cure. The graduate in medicine is quite rightly expected to keep abreast of the times, and to adopt these changes in therapeutics as they appear upon the medical horizon.

The homoeopathic student is automatically placed at a disadvantage by the “old schools” disregard of the extensive study of therapeutics in their medical colleges. He is expected to pass the same state board examinations and license to practice as they are in a course which occupies all their time, and also to become proficient in the very extensive homoeopathic studies of philosophy, materia medica, therapeutics, case taking and repertorizing.

It must be quite obvious that the average medical student is much overworked, and that if any subjects are shirked it will be these homoeopath ones, as they are not an essential part of his state board examination, nor his graduation. He justifies this course by necessity, and feels that in the beginning years of practice he will have plenty of time to study up on his homoeopathy. We, the members of the homoeopathic profession, must not be too severe in our criticism of these graduates of medicines, nor of our colleges.

Take the case of an allopathic graduate, or of a homoeopath who is that in name only, and who wishes to study further the true application of Hahnemanns Law of Similars: where can they turn for such training? Few men have the time or funds to allow them to take a year at a homoeopathic college. Should they do so, however, just how much good working homoeopathy will they be able to accumulate from a course which is planned to meet the graduation requirements of the American Medical Association, or of the different state boards?.

It is quite evident that homoeopathic education in time, and that time dates from now, will have to be post-graduate as well as undergraduate. To that end the homoeopathic physicians and societies and associations throughout the and should sponsor homoeopathic postgraduate education.

The American Foundation for Homoeopathic operates such a school, and has done so almost continuously for eighteen years. Each year a six weeks course in good homoeopathic philosophy, materia medica and prescribing, as taught by Hahnemann in the Organon, is given. This effort deserves the active support of every homoeopath, both as to prospective students and financial aid.

Allan D. Sutherland
Dr. Sutherland graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia and was editor of the Homeopathic Recorder and the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.