Doctors in the Palace

When Disraeli caught a chill and took to his bed in 1881, Queen Victoria was deeply worried. She asked who was taking care of him and was told that Disraeli's doctor was a homeopath.* The Queen was even more worried; she suggested a consultation with regular doctors. But medical etiquette forbade any orthodox doctor working on a case with a homeopath. Eventually the Queen raised such a fuss that both schools of doctors got together long enough before Disraeli died to agree that he had bronchitis.

In more recent years, the royal family has not shared Victoria's suspicion of homeopathy: twelve years ago the top-drawer job of physician to the King went to genial Homeopath Sir John Weir. Weir, a white-haired, white-mustached master of the jolly bedside manner, shares honors with Lord Horder and Sir Maurice Cassidy. But in practice, Weir has been the man who actually looked after George VI and his family.

Last week Weir had a strong rival. The latest bulletin on the King's health bore the name of Dr. Horace Evans, 46-year-old member of the orthodox school. Queen Mary named Evans two years ago as her second physician, next to Weir; ever since, she has been saying loudly that she thinks he is the most brilliant young doctor in London.

When Queen Mary heard that the specialists were advising another physician because of her son's illness (TIME, Dec. 6) it was only natural that she, like Victoria, should rap the ground with her walking stick and back her protege for the new job.

Weir is not necessarily on the way out, but the homeopaths' prestige in Britain is. Except for the foothold at the palace, homeopathy is pretty much out of fashion. Other doctors no longer bother to keep up the tradition against fraternizing --chiefly because they feel that homeopaths no longer threaten their medical power.

*Homeopathy is a system of healing founded by Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann, German physician, in the late 18th Century. The name (literally, "like disease") refers to the belief that "like cures like"; i.e., that diseases can be cured by tiny doses of drugs that produce effects on the body like the symptoms of the disease. In the U.S., medical schools that were once homeopathic have been turning away from Hahnemann's teachings, toward orthodoxy and American Medical Association recognition. Last September, Philadelphia's Hahnemann Medical College, once a center of homeopathy, dropped homeopathy as a required course; Manhattan's New York Medical College still requires one short course. Graduates of both schools are M.D.s, in full medical standing.

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