Divided Legacy: The Conflict between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association by Harris Coulter

Divided Legacy: The Conflict between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association by Harris Coulter is a history of Western medical philosophy from the time of Hippocrates to the twentieth century, treating it as a unified system of thought rather than a series of fortuitous discoveries. Dr. Coulter interprets the development of medical ideas as the product of a conflict between two opposed systems of thought, Empiricism and Rationalism. This third volume of Divided Legacy continues the account of the conflict between the Empirical and the Rationalist approaches to therapeutics but introduces a socio-economic dimension which had earlier been lacking. In the early nineteenth century, Samuel Hahnemann’s formulation of the Empirical therapeutic doctrine, which he called homeopathy, flourished especially in the United States. This volume traces the history of the rise and decline of this formulation of Empirical therapeutics in the nineteenth century United States. It analyzes the interaction between the homeopathic doctrines and those of the orthodox school and attempts to illustrate the influence of socio-economic constraints on the movement of medical thought during this period. The book is based on extensive research and documentation, and it offers a critical and comprehensive perspective on the history and philosophy of medicine. It is also a testimony to the timeless relevance and effectiveness of homeopathy as an alternative system of healing.