On April 11th 2011, our guest speaker, Heike Bishop, gave an excellent presentation on the topic “Survival in the Bush: German Homoeopathy (Homeopathy) in Australia”. Heike Bishop, a homeopath from Adelaide, has written a thesis on this topic and gave this talk at a Friends of Lutheran Archives meeting in Adelaide in May 2009. She explained that homeopathic remedies involve the use of highly diluted substances, in tablet or liquid form, based on the philosophy “Let like be cured by like”.

The German settlers in the Barossa Valley had strong ties with homeopathy and the earliest such activity was recorded in the 1850s. These early settlers successfully treated their livestock and themselves with traditional homeopathic remedies and evidence for this can be found in the German Museum in Tanunda, where books and remedy chests are displayed.

Homeopathy became the preferred method of treatment in the 1850s-1880s. Johann Zwar practised for over 50 years as a homeopathic doctor, using medicines imported from Leipzig. Wilhelm Heinrich Scholz of Light Pass in the Barossa Valley also practised homeopathy. His name appears in the Klemzig memorial as “Founded the Willows Hospital, Light’s Pass, for orthopedic and homoeopathic medicine.”

Homeopathy was introduced to Victoria in the Gold Rush. The homeopathic hospital at 17 Spring St, Melbourne was the first homeopathic hospital in the Southern Hemisphere. Another hospital, the Melbourne Homeopathic Hospital, originated in a Collins St. homeopathic dispensary. It opened as a hospital for the poor in 1876. From 1885 it was situated in St. Kilda Rd. It ceased to be a homeopathic facility in 1934 when it was renamed Prince Henry’s Hospital.

President John Noack thanked Heike Bishop for travelling from Adelaide to present her interesting talk and thanked the Friends of Lutheran Archives (FoLAV) for co-sponsoring this event with the Wendish Heritage Society Aust. Inc.