Isaac Golden PhD (Associated Member)
PO Box 695, Gisborne
Victoria 3437 Australia
homstudy@bigpond.com
A brief overview of homeopathy in Australia

Australia’s first homeopath, Dr Stephen Simpson, arrived in 1840 in New South Wales. He later moved to Queensland.

The Martin & Pleasance homeopathic pharmacy (originally named Kinder and Gould) began in 1860, and still operates from Melbourne.

Australia’s first homeopathic hospital was established in Melbourne in 1876, followed by Tasmanian Hospitals in Hobart in 1899 and Launceston 1900. The Sydney Homeopathic Hospital was founded in 1902. None of these hospitals lasted into the mid 1900’s

The first national association of homeopaths (the Australian Federation of Homeopaths) was formed in 1988, and became the Australian Homeopathic Association in 1995. It remains the largest national association of homeopaths today. The Australian Register of Homeopaths was established as the single national accrediting body for Australian Homeopaths in 1999.

Attacks on homeopathy began in 1880 when the British Medical Association took over the various Australian medical associations, and have been present since then. They intensified from 2005 following the Lancet article and editorial and the UK House of Commons reviews, but reached new depths following the formation of the inappropriately named Friends of Science in Medicine in 2013, a pro-pharmaceutical lobby group with an open agenda against all forms of natural medicine, especially homeopathy.

Their influence was partly responsible for Australia’s peak scientific research body, the National Health & Medical Research Council finding that homeopathy lacked evidence of effectiveness. This finding, based on deceptive research methodology, is currently being contested in a complaint to Australia’s national Ombudsman.