Sue Young Homeopathy

William Bayes 1823-1882 was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. Educated at University College London, Bayes was involved with the London Homeopathic Hospital alongside Frederick Hervey Foster Quin and Robert Ellis Dudgeon.

In 1856 William Bayes said that science will have difficulty accepting homeopathy, and that the only proof, until science and chemistry matures sufficiently, with be the ‘vital test’- the effect of curing; in fact studying homeopathy without studying its pharmacopoeia is like trying to understand Hamlet without knowing the prince.

In his letter to the British Journal of Homeopathy 1862, William Bayes wrote (on Medical Terrorism):

‘It does not appear clear whether you mean that the Colleges would have rejected me, if I had told them that I intended to practice homeopathy… In adopting homeopathy into my practice, I have broken no clause in the Medical Act, nor any bye law of the College of Physicians or the College of Surgeons… ‘

In the 1850’s the London Homeopathic Hospital was established as a teaching centre. This merged in the late 1870’s (after Frederick Hervey Foster Quin’s death) with the London Homeopathic Hospital. It was chiefly run by Robert Ellis Dudgeon and William Bayes… Leading figures of this period include William Bayes, Robert Ellis Dudgeon and Richard Hughes….

William Bayes 1823-1882 Physician and Writer Educated at University College, London. MRCS in 1840’s, Hon MD Lambeth 1850. Founded London School of Homeopathy on 15th December 1876. He died at 88 Lansdowne Place, Brighton on 8th December 1882. In the 1881 Census, there is a William Bayes, Physician, aged 58, born (Kings?) Lynn, Norfolk and living at 82 Redcliffe Gardens, Kensington, London (in 1881).

Volume II, The History of Homeopathy, contains contributions both foreign and domestic. Appropriately enough, the first section is a 90 page history of homeopathy in Germany 1794-1875, including statistics about certain hospitals and dispensaries, written by Gustav Puhlman and Clotar Mueller. This is followed by an historical and statistical report on homeopathy in the United Kingdom, specifically Great Britain and Ireland, each section written by a different member of the British Homeopathic Society: C. B. Kerr, Herbert Nankiveli, Richard Hughes, Alfred C. Pope and William Bayes.

William Bayes wrote A letter to the Medical Acts Commission on the claims of the homoepathic public and homoepathic physicians to consideration under any new medical act, Indigestion: its homeopathic treatment with eight remedies, Rheumatism: its homeopathic treatment with eight remedies, Sea Sickness: its homeopathic treatment with eight remedies, Two Sides to a Question: A Few Observations on Mr. Braithwaite’s “Temperate … , Medical Terrorism in 1862, The Position of Homœopathy in the Rational Practice of Medicine, Applied homoeopathy : or specific restorative medicine and William Bayes was the editor of The London and Provincial Homœopathic Medical Directory, and he contributed regularly to the homeopathic Journals Transactions, The Journal of the British Homeopathic Society, Medical Press and Circular, The Clinique and many others.