A sparkling gem of altmed wooly thinking has gone widely unremarked because it came during the runup to the silly season. I felt it was worth putting out there in the context of the current debate about the teaching of quackery in universities.

 

One of the most egregious offenders in this case is Southern Cross University, based in the North Coast of New South Wales and with major campuses at Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Gold Coast and Tweed Heads. They were the first to offer degree-level training to naturopaths, with support from Marcus Blackmore, owner of Blackmore’s of CokeandfriesGate fame. Blackmore received an honorary doctorate from SCU in 2006, and was the inaugural Chair of the Southern Cross University Foundation Board. The University offers more conventional healthcare training apart from the naturopathy and osteopathy courses, with allied health disciplines including psychology, occupational therapy, exercise physiology and nursing offered as well. The Dean of the School of Health is Professor Iain Graham, an academic nurse with a very long list of publications and contributions to the literature of his profession.

 

This makes the following howler a bit hard to figure out.

 

When responding to criticism of his School’s woo-based courses, Prof Graham dropped this pearl

 

“He mentioned homeopathy for example, well homeopathy is as old as Greek Hypocrates in terms of practising medicine.”

 

The same quote bobbed up a couple of days later in the local paper.

 

Dr Steve Novella did a very good job of dissecting the logical fallacies in these brief quotes so I don’t think any more needs to be said apart from noting that if this is the level of informed comment from the academic in charge of the School, I shudder to imagine the level of teaching that goes on at an undergraduate level.

 

It did get me thinking though. What if homeopathy HAD been invented by the Greeks instead of by Samuel Hahnemann in the first decade of the nineteenth century? I know that Hippocrates (note the spelling if you read the ABC local news link above!) in 400BC described the idea of using a small dose of mandrake root (which causes delirium and disorganized behaviour in toxic doses) to treat mania. He did not make this a general rule however, and he also wrote about a bunch of other causes of disease and various cures based on other principles.

 

This leaves room for…..Hahnemanocrates. The true inventor of ancient Greek homeopathy.

 

 

So now Prof Graham can rest easy for his next interview. If he needs to quote Hahnemanocrates he now has some references…