History of Electrohomeopathy

Electrohomeopathy was devised by Cesare Mattei (1809–1896) in the latter part of the 19th century. Mattei, a nobleman living in a castle near Bologna, immersed himself in the study of natural science, anatomy, physiology, pathology, chemistry, and botany. His work eventually centered on the supposed therapeutic power of "electricity" in botanical extracts. Mattei made bold, unsupported claims for the efficacy of his treatments, including the assertion that they offered a nonsurgical alternative to cancer. However, his treatment regimens were met with skepticism by medical orthodoxy.

The electrohomeopathic system is an invention of Count Mattei who prates of "red," "blue," and "green" electricity, a theory that, in spite of its utter idiocy, has attracted a considerable following and earned a large fortune for its chief promoter.

After Mattei’s death, his work was built upon by Theodore Krauss (1864–1924), who amplified the number of available treatments, including the introduction of injectable forms, and modernized production processes.

Not with standing criticisms, including a challenge by the British medical establishment to the claimed success of his cancer treatments, electrohomeopathy (or Matteism, as it was sometimes known at the time) attracted adherents in Germany, France, the US and the UK by the beginning of the 20th century; electrohomeopathy had been the subject of approximately 100 publications and there were three journals dedicated to it. By 1892, "in deference to popular clamour it was beginning to be practised even by regular medical practitioners." W. T. Stead published a challenge to the medical faculty, which resulted in a medical committee being set up, under Morell Mackenzie, to inquire into the claims of Matteism. All of the committee members were sceptical, but "we were all steadfastly resolved, if we should find ourselves mistaken, and if Mattei’s potions really should cure cancer in some inconceivable way, that we would admit our error and make known the true state of the case.

The committee observed five patients with cancer of the breast, selected by the Matteists who were treating them. After a year, they found that "the cancerous growths all continued to progress exactly as if no treatment whatever had been used. Some developed slowly, others more rapidly: but one, which had presented an unbroken surface at the outset, very soon became deeply ulcerated and excavated, and even the Matteists themselves were obliged to admit that “it seemed to be getting worse.” ... Matteism, in the deliberate judgment of the committee, consists exclusively of vulgar, unadulterated, unredeemed quackery... Mr. Stokes analysed the “electricities", and found them to yield no other reaction than that of plain distilled water.