The King's Leech: The British Royal Family's Historic Love Of Quack Medicine
Earlier this month, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles had been diagnosed with cancer. Though specific details about his health have understandably been kept private, the press has reported that the king has returned to London to begin undergoing treatment, and we here at HR&R wish him a speedy recovery.
Interestingly, the news of the king’s diagnosis comes just two months after The Sunday Times reported that King Charles had appointed a homeopathic doctor, Michael Dixon, as the head of the royal medical household – a position usually reserved for the monarch’s physician.1 This is the first time in history the same person is not serving both roles.
As a side note, homeopathic medicine is not synonymous with alternative medicine. Homeopathic medicine is based on the premise of treating “like with like,” and claims to stimulate healing responses to diseases by administering highly diluted substances that mimic the symptoms of those diseases in healthy people. For example, a “treatment” for watering eyes is a concoction of diluted “allium cepa,” a.k.a. the common onion.
The description of “diluted” cannot be emphasized enough. Per the BBC, “one part of the substance is mixed with 99 parts of water or alcohol, and this is repeated six times in a ‘6c’ formulation or 30 times in a ‘30c’ formulation.”2 This means that for a 6c solution, the active ingredient is one part per trillion. This one part per trillion serum is then shaken vigorously, which supposedly enhances its healing properties, and finally combined with a sugar pill – essentially creating sugar water.
While there have been some examples of alternative medicine that are effective, especially when used as a complement to traditional medicine, homeopathy has consistently failed scientific scrutiny. In fact, following a review of 13 reviews and meta-analyses, researchers “failed to identify a single condition for which the remedies are efficacious and, more recently, have noted that the best studies show no effect.”3
A quick look into Mr. Dixon’s beliefs showcase why homeopathy has seen such poor results. According to The Guardian, the new head of the royal medical household has championed “an Indian herbal cure ‘ultra-diluted’ with alcohol, which claims to kill breast cancer cells.”4 Let us hope he does not suggest that remedy to whatever cancer King Charles is facing.
However, the king’s attraction to homeopathy is nothing new. After assuming the presidency of the British Medical Association in 1982, Charles embarked on a campaign to popularize homeopathy; in first speech as president, he told an audience of doctors that modern medicine was “like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance.” In 1996, he founded what is now known as The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH), contributing significantly to its £2 million endowment. Lastly, and most importantly, a release of the “black spider memos” revealed that, as Prince of Wales, King Charles had secretly lobbied the NHS to dedicate more of its budget to homeopathy, which was facing massive cuts due to financial constraints.
But Charles is not the first monarch to be attracted to homeopathy; in fact, history shows a royal fascination with this medical pseudoscience.
Queens and Quackery
Homeopathy was founded by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th century. Dissatisfied with the medical practices of his time, which often involved harsh treatments like bloodletting and the use of toxic substances, Hahnemann began experimenting with alternative methods. But what catapulted homeopathy into popularity in England was when Queen Adelaide, the wife of Willian IV, openly used the services of Hahnemann’s colleague, Dr. Johann Ernst Stapf. She claimed the concoctions cured her, and would have vials of homeopathic solutions sent to her from Germany.
This understandably caused a stir, and as noted in the paper “It Won’t Do Any Harm: Practice and People at the London Homeopathic Hospital 1889-1923,” the queen’s approval of the untested medicines “seems to have had political repercussions and Sir Henry Halford, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, bemoaned the influence of the new system.”5 He went so far as to call it a “crisis” in one missive.
Homeopathy among royalty and royal-adjacent circles grew exponentially after Dr. Frederick Quin fought to bring the practice to British soil. An aristocrat himself, Quin introduced homeopathy into the very highest levels of English society, and his patients and sponsors reads like a page out of Debrett’s: the Dukes of Beaufort, the Dukes of Cambridge, the Earl of Essex, Lord Gray of Gray, Viscount Malden, Lord Ernle, Earl of Kintore, Earl of Kinnaird, the Lords Page, the Dukes of Sutherland, etc. etc. The names go on for paragraphs and paragraphs.6 Quin was so successful that he opened his own clinic, the London Homeopathic Hospital, which still stands today (though it has been rebranded the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine).
Since Queen Adelaide, several monarchs and other elite aristos of Great Britain have openly relied on homeopathic physicians for medical care. Queen Mary (formerly Princess May and wife of King George V) spearheaded fundraising efforts to relocate and expand the London Homeopathic Hospital; she even laid the foundation stone for its major renovation. King George V reportedly found practical relief for his seasickness through homeopathy. King Edward VIII, later known as Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, carried powdered homeopathic medicines in his pocket. King George VI formally granted royal patronage to what is now the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. Most recently, Queen Elizabeth patronized this hospital, which underwent a $35 million renovation in 2005.
Those Meddlesome Kids Gloves
While the royals’ fascination with homeopathy is quirky, what makes this a history, rinse, and repeat is how the royals and royal-adjacents were so dedicated to homeopathy that they interfered politically to advance its practice.
First was their “soft power” maneuvers to show their support of the practice. One such move was Quin’s treatment after his death. Prince Edward of Wales – who later became King Edward VIII – sent four empty horse-drawn royal carriages to head Quin’s funeral procession. According to Peter Morrell’s History of Homeopathy in Britain, this was probably the “highest honor ever paid by a Royal to a commoner.”7
But there were examples of hard power too, albeit from a royal-adjacent aristocrat in the Royal Household rather than the royal family itself. Though there was no NHS in Victorian England, there was a movement to create some sort of governmental standard regarding medical care. This culminated in the Regulating the Practice of Medicine Act of 1858 – known colloquially as the Medical Act of 1858. Per the ever-so-scholarly Wikipedia, the act noted that "it is expedient that Persons requiring Medical Aid should be enabled to distinguish qualified from unqualified Practitioners.” To meet this end, the act established the Registrar of the General Medical Council — an office still in existence today — whose duty is to keep up-to-date records of those registered to practice medicine and to make them publicly available.
As demonstrated by Queen Adelaide’s distraught physician, the scientific establishment did not want homeopaths to be titled as “qualified” medical practitioners, and homeopaths were originally excluded. However, Robert Grosvenor, who was known as Lord Ebury and served as the Comptroller of the Royal British Household, moved to have the clause removed.
As reported in a July 24, 1858 edition of the British Medical Journal:8
“Lord Ebury said the ostensible object of the Bill was to remedy the anomalies that at present existed in the medical profession of this country; but the real effect of it would be to secure a monopoly to these various associations.”
Lord Ebury, supported by several other aristocratic MPs, succeeded in defeating the attempt to make homeopathic practices illegal, and thus the LHH and other homeopathic institutions continued to flourish for decades to come, securing grants and endowments from other wealthy Britons which could have been better used at genuine medical practices. Moreover, this meant that, until 2017, the NHS funded homeopathy as part of its budget – with King Charles behind the scenes pressuring government ministers to keep the practice going for as long as possible.
$100 Million Sugar Water
Though it is difficult to ascertain how much money the NHS has spent on homeopathic medicine, one Guardian article estimated that it spent close to $20 million USD in just a three year period.9 That would come to $100 million in a decade and a half (assuming spending remained consistent) that could have gone to so many better causes.
But, sadly, the misdirected funds likely mean very little to King Charles. Now that he has cancer, he will undoubtedly receive the best traditional care possible, and we wish him well. However, this author confesses that she hopes his health issues will help him reevaluate his habit of denigrating traditional medicine while commending his magical sugar water. It is time to break this historical cycle.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43373817
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/17/king-charles-has-appointed-homeopath-why-do-elite-put-faith-in-snake-oil
https://www.igm-bosch.de/files/img/pdf-dokumente-publikationen/Pluralismus%20in%20der%20Medizin/EAHMH_3_11BLMLAB.pdf
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Homeopathic_Revolution/BXZlprZRTJoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=adelaide
http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/pm_brita.htm
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25192540.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/jun/10/complementary-medicine-nhs-more4
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Interesting article about these odd people. At least the King is not commissioning a series of rain dances.