This book review is reprinted from the British Homoeopathic Journal Volume 76, Number 4, October 1987, with permission from Peter Fisher, Editor.
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Scientific Foundations of Homeopathy.
Gerhard Resch and Viktor Gutmann.
Berg am Starnberger
See: Barthel and Barthel Publishing 1987.
ISBN 3-88950-047-1.
Pp. 483.
Price not stated.
[Editor's note: As of August 1996 Minimum Price Books' price is $57.00]

This is an important, wide-ranging and scholarly work. While the claim of its back-cover blurb that it '. . . introduces a new epoch of homeopathy!' contains a pinch of publisher's hyperbole, this is certainly the most original and stimulating book on homoeopathy that I have read for a long time. The authors are both Austrian; Dr Resch is a homoeopathic doctor and Professor Gutmann, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Technical University of Vienna.

An important book
By their own admission the authors have taken a comprehensive view of their subject. They declare in the introduction that they intend to unravel the Gordian knot of assertions, doctrines etc. surrounding homoeopathy rather than to cut it by introducing a new doctrine. They attempt not only to deal with the insights into the nature of 'potency energy' derived from their experimental and theoretical work, but to situate homoeopathy in its historical context, as well as a comprehensive critique of scientific method as it applies to medicine.

The first section of the book deals with philosophical and historical aspects. It opens with a potted history of medicine from the earliest Greek and Egyptian records to the time of Hahnemann. It then goes on to place this in the wider framework of the development of science and epistemology, starting with Democritus and Aristotle, passing via St Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Descartes, Bacon (among many others), through the development of modern chemistry and quantum physics, to the contemporary British physicist David Bohm, whose ideas are central to the thesis that Resch and Gutmann develop later in the book.

Towards an understanding of 'Potency energy'...
The middle section of the book deals with physico-chemical questions, some parts of this will be familiar to those who have heard Resch speak. It presents a large amount of empirical data from physical chemistry experiments of various kinds, many of them performed in Gutmann's own laboratory. Data on the effects of grinding, and the structure and properties of water and lactose, among other topics, are presented. Some of this data is highly technical, requiring a degree-level knowledge of physical chemistry to understand it fully.

The interpretation and significance of these results is then discussed, drawing heavily on Bohm's theory of whole-system hierarchical organization. Resch and Gutmann do not make any facile claim to have solved the problem of 'potency energy', but with the large amount of empirical data and theoretical interpretation that they marshal, have certainly taken us some way down the road.

The third and final part of the book is, in good Hegelian fashion, a synthesis, drawing the threads together. The authors certainly do not shy away from difficult issues, diving straight into the deep end with a discussion of the nature of man and the soul. They then proceed to a discussion of the nature of health and disease, and a critique of orthodox, reductionist medical science. The authors again refer to Bohm's concept of wholism in arguing the necessity of viewing man as a spiritual being.

The book goes on to discuss homoeopathic practice, history-taking, repertories (particularly Flury's) and finally that most controversial part of Hahnemann's legacy, the chronic miasms, with which the authors (in this case, no doubt, Resch) close on a somewhat equivocal note.

The book also contains some intriguing little sidelines, for instance, an account of the long but entirely fraudulent history of the perpetual motion machine. Or the similarlity remarked by the authors between the philosophical views propounded by the First Vatican Council and those of the great revolutionary V. 1. Lenin.

Translation
My main complaints concern the translation, by Gutmann and Resch's daughter Ulrike. There are some mistranslations-particularly of proper names, and on page 179, for instance, a secret is 'lifted', where it surely should have been revealed. No attempt is made to translate the German 'Anlage'. The use of quotation marks etc. alternates, apparently at random, between the English and German conventions.

These are trivial points; much more serious is the sensation of vagueness in some important passages, where it is very difficult to know whether one has truly grasped what the authors are trying to convey. One has the impression that the translators were not really up to rendering some of the difficult and complex concepts of the text into clear English. Surely it is axiomatic that translators translate into their first language, or that, at least, the publisher should ensure adequate checking of copy? It is to be hoped that Barthel will remedy this in a future edition.

Having said that, the book is well-produced, on good quality paper with hard bindings. There are lots of illustrations, some in colour. The references and footnotes are full and detailed.

This book is no lightweight. It is a scientific and philosophic tour de force, a landmark in the intellectual development of homoeopathy. It makes some bold propositions whose validity, will take some time to assess but whose implications for homoeopathy could be far-reaching.

PETER FISHER

British Homoeopathic Journal
Volume 76, Number 4, October 1987