For almost two hundred years, the royal families of Europe, with every physician in the world at their disposal, kept returning to one system of medicine.
This article looks at that history and at what it tells us about how patients judge results.
The Queen Mother lived to 101. She called Arnica “the most wonderful medicine.”
Imagine you are a monarch.
Unlimited budget. The world’s finest physicians available at a moment’s notice. No waiting lists, no insurance restrictions, no system pressures of any kind.
You can choose absolutely anything.
And you choose homeopathy.
Not one monarch. Not two. Dozens of royal families across nearly two centuries, from Britain to Spain, from the Russian Empire to Prussia, made the same choice, again and again.
I think about this often. Not as a historical curiosity. As a clue.
Because a patient with every option available is the most honest critic there is. They have little reason to remain loyal to a method unless they are seeing results.
The British Crown: nearly two centuries of continuity
Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV, was one of the first British royals to embrace homeopathy in the 1830s. She was treated by the German homeopath Dr Johann Ernst Stapf, a close associate of Samuel Hahnemann himself. From that moment on, the pattern never really broke.
Queen Victoria used homeopathy throughout her life. She appointed the first homeopathic physician to the royal household. Every monarch since has continued that tradition.
King George VI was so committed that he named one of his racehorses Hypericum, after the homeopathic remedy. She won the 1946 One Thousand Guineas at Newmarket. In the late 1940s, he granted the London Homoeopathic Hospital its Royal title, and it became the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. Its modern successor is the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, part of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Queen Elizabeth II carried a case of homeopathic remedies with her when she travelled, on the advice of her physicians, including Dr Margery Blackie and Sir John Weir. In 2000, on a visit to the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, she unveiled a portrait of Sir John Weir, who had served four British monarchs as their homeopathic physician.
King Charles III was formally confirmed as Patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy in 2019, when he was still the Prince of Wales, and has continued in that role. He has spoken publicly for many decades in defence of integrative medicine.
Nearly two hundred years. Six monarchs. One consistent choice.
Beyond Britain: Europe and Russia
This was never just a British eccentricity.
The Habsburgs in Austria supported homeopathy at the highest levels. The Spanish Royal Family used it. The Prussian court used it. The Russian imperial family used it. Tsar Alexander II employed homeopathic physicians. The last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family relied on homeopathy for their haemophiliac son Alexei.
These were not marginal enthusiasts. These were the most protected, most privileged patients on the continent, with access to every conventional physician of their day. And they chose homeopathy repeatedly.
Prussia: a king writes in defence of the method
In Prussia, the endorsement went beyond quiet patronage.
On 3 January 1842, King Frederick William IV of Prussia wrote personally to the Austrian military physician Matthias Marenzeller, who had introduced homeopathy into Austrian and Bohemian hospitals. The King thanked Marenzeller for recommending homeopathy to his protection, sanctioned the erection of a homoeopathic hospital, promised State Treasury funds for it, and confirmed his intention to allow homoeopathic practitioners to dispense their own medicines under certain conditions.
That is not the language of a passing fashion. That is a head of state committing public money and public policy on the strength of what he had seen.
Austria: the ban that could not hold
The Austrian story is even more telling.
In 1819, the Austrian imperial authorities banned the practice of homeopathy outright. The ban stood on the books until 1837. Yet during those same years, homeopathy continued to be quietly practised and observed, most notably by the military physician Matthias Marenzeller.
In 1828, Emperor Francis I himself ordered clinical trials of homeopathy at the Josephinum, the imperial academy of military medicine in Vienna. Marenzeller conducted them. The results were favourable enough that homeopathy was subsequently accepted as a university discipline in Prague and Vienna.
A system of medicine does not survive an imperial ban, get formally trialled by the same imperial authority, and then be accepted into the university system if its results are not being observed at close range by serious people.
Spain: A Hereditary Title for Medical Results
Dr José Nuñez trained with Hahnemann himself. After practising in France, he returned to Spain and was eventually appointed to the court of Queen Isabella II.
She granted him the title of Marquis of Nuñez. A hereditary title. Awarded for medical results.
In the 19th century, you did not receive such recognition for placebo effects and good bedside manner.
The Radetzky case: how homeopathy entered the Habsburg court
One historical case in particular shifted the attitude of the Austrian imperial establishment.
Field Marshal Josef Radetzky, one of the most decorated military commanders in Habsburg history, developed a serious disease of the right eye socket. The court’s conventional physicians recommended surgical intervention. Radetzky refused.
He was treated by a homeopathic physician instead. Within six weeks, he had fully recovered.
The Emperor took notice. Homeopathy quickly gained influence at the Austrian court and among the Habsburg-adjacent nobility.
The cholera evidence: London, Cincinnati, Italy
The reputation of homeopathy in the 19th century was not built on court favour alone. It was built on public health outcomes during epidemics, when death rates could be counted honestly.
In London, during the 1854 Soho cholera outbreak, the London Homoeopathic Hospital reported a mortality rate of 16.4 per cent among 61 admitted cases. The nearby Middlesex Hospital, using the conventional treatments of the day, reported 53.2 per cent across 231 cases. The London Homoeopathic Hospital figures were audited at the time by a Board of Health inquiry and were, for that reason, briefly excluded from the official report and only added later as a supplement.
In Cincinnati, during the 1849 cholera epidemic, the German-born homeopaths Dr Joseph Hipolyte Pulte and Dr Ehrmann published their case records in the local Gazette. Between May and August 1849, they treated 1,116 cholera patients. The published mortality was 35, a case fatality rate of about 3.1 per cent, at a time when conventional mortality in the same city ran between roughly 48 and 60 per cent. Later summaries by the American Institute of Homeopathy give a broader figure of 2,646 cholera patients treated by the same physicians with a mortality of 1.32 per cent.
In Italy, published records show that between 1836 and 1867, homeopaths treated 6,238 cholera patients with a mortality rate of 7.39 per cent. Conventional mortality in the same era regularly exceeded 50 per cent.
These are not clinical trials in the modern sense. They are contemporary hospital and physician records, published at the time, in institutions and journals subject to public scrutiny.
What monarchs actually chose
We can now separate the choice from the myth.
Royals did not choose homeopathy because it was fashionable. Fashion changes every decade, and this pattern lasted nearly two centuries.
They did not choose it because it was cheaper. Cost was irrelevant.
They did not choose it because it was more accessible. They had access to everything.
They chose it, and their families chose it after them, because they saw something in the results that made them return.
Repeatedly. Across generations. In war, in childbirth, in chronic illness, and in the ordinary complaints of daily life.
What This Means for how I think about clinical work
I am not asking you to accept homeopathy on the basis of royal authority. Monarchs made poor decisions in many areas of life.
But this history does show something important: when people with unrestricted choice return to the same method repeatedly, they are not usually doing it for fashion. They are doing it because something in their experience tells them to continue.
That is what I have seen again and again in more than 25 years of clinical practice.
The person who has been unwell for years, seen many practitioners, tried many things, and finally finds a form of care where their whole picture is taken seriously, does not usually return to fragmented treatment. They stay. They send their families. They send their friends.
That pattern, at the individual level, is the same as the one the royal families displayed at the historical level.
Repeated return is not proof. But it is evidence.
If you are considering an integrative approach
If you are considering a serious integrative approach to complex, chronic, or stress-driven symptoms, I would gently encourage you to look at the long historical record. Look at who chose homeopathy, in what conditions, and for how long. Then look at your own body, your own history, your own sense of what has worked and what has not.
If, after that, you would like to explore what a consultation with me might look like, you can read more here or write to me directly.
The person who walked in with one set of symptoms and walked out without them is not a slogan. It is a record I have watched build over more than 25 years, one patient at a time.
Galina Ganzenko is an integrative and functional medicine practitioner and homeopath, with over 25 years of clinical experience. She lives and works in the United Kingdom and sees patients online worldwide.
This article was first published on LinkedIn on 2 June 2026. It has been revised and republished here in July 2026 with additional sourcing.
Author: Galina Ganzenko, Integrative Stress and Trauma Consultant | Stress Balance Method | 25+ years in practice | Online worldwide | absolutehealth.pro
Originally published on LinkedIn on 2 June 2026. Follow Galina Ganzenko on LinkedIn for more.
References
British Royal Family and homeopathy
- “The King’s Homeopath?” Homeopathic College. Queen Adelaide, Dr Johann Ernst Stapf, and the origins of British royal patronage of homeopathy.
- Morrell P. “British Royalty and Homeopathy.” The Peter Morrell Archive. Overview of royal patronage from Queen Adelaide onwards.
- Hahnemann House Trust. “King George VI (1895–1952).” Hahnemann House. George VI’s use of homeopathy, the racehorse Hypericum, and the granting of the Royal title in 1948.
- “Hypericum (horse).” Wikipedia. George VI’s homeopathically named filly winning the 1946 One Thousand Guineas at Newmarket.
- “Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.” Wikipedia. Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital granted Royal title by George VI in 1948; renamed the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine in 2010.
- University College London Hospitals Charity. “Our history.” UCLH Charity. Successor institution history and continuity of the hospital.
- European Federation of Homeopathic Patients Associations. “Queen Elizabeth II and homeopathy.” EFHPA. The Queen’s lifelong use of homeopathic remedies, the 2000 visit to the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital and the unveiling of the portrait of Sir John Weir.
- Faculty of Homeopathy. “A tribute to Her Majesty the Queen, Queen Elizabeth II.” Faculty of Homeopathy. Royal patronage of the Faculty and the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital.
- Hahnemann House Trust. “Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1900–2002).” Hahnemann House. The Queen Mother’s use of homeopathy, her Arnica quote, and her personal remedy case.
- Faculty of Homeopathy. “His Majesty King Charles III.” Faculty of Homeopathy. King Charles III as Patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy, confirmed in 2019 and continued after his accession.
Continental Europe and the Habsburg, Prussian and Russian courts
- Hahnemann House Trust. “Emperor Francis I of Austria (1768–1835).” Hahnemann House. The 1828 imperial trials of homeopathy at the Josephinum in Vienna.
- Hahnemann House Trust. “Matthias Marenzeller (1765–1854).” Hahnemann House. Introduction of homeopathy into Austrian and Bohemian hospitals, and Marenzeller’s role in the imperial trials.
- Hahnemann House Trust. “Christophe Hartung (1779–1853).” Hahnemann House. Field Marshal Radetzky’s treatment for a serious disease of the right eye socket.
- Ameke W. “History of Homœopathy: Its Origin; Its Conflicts.” Presented by Dr Robert Séror. homeoint.org. Full text of King Frederick William IV of Prussia’s letter to Matthias Marenzeller, dated Charlottenburg, 3 January 1842.
- Morrell P. “British Homoeopathy during two centuries.” The Peter Morrell Archive. Continental royal and aristocratic patronage of homeopathy, including the Austrian imperial context.
Cholera epidemics and 19th-century mortality data
- Emmans Dean M. “Homeopathy and the treatment of cholera and other epidemic diseases in the 19th century.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2016; 109(7): 265–267. Peer-reviewed overview of 19th-century homeopathic epidemic outcomes.
- Morrell P. “The 1854 cholera outbreak and the London Homoeopathic Hospital.” The Peter Morrell Archive. London Homoeopathic Hospital: 61 admissions, 10 deaths (16.4%); Middlesex Hospital nearby: 231 cases, 123 deaths (53.2%); the Board of Health suppression and later publication of the figures.
- “The London Homoeopathic Hospital.” Lost Hospitals of London / Ezitis Archive. Corroborating cholera treatment outcome data.
- Pulte JH, Ehrmann. “Report of Homeopathic treatment of cholera in Cincinnati, 1849.” Digital Collections, US National Library of Medicine, NIH. Original 1849 published record: 1,116 cholera patients treated by Drs Pulte and Ehrmann between May and August 1849, with 35 deaths.
- American Institute of Homeopathy. “Letter to the World Health Organization.” homeopathyusa.org. Summary of Cincinnati 1849 cholera outcomes: 2,646 patients, 1.32% mortality.
- Rossi E, Endrizzi C, Panozzo MA, Bianchi A, Da Frè M. “Homeopathy in the public health system: outcome data from the Homeopathic Clinic of Lucca (Italy).” Integrative and Complementary Medicine (LIDSEN). Italian mortality data 1836–1867: 6,238 patients treated, 7.39% mortality.
Image
British Homoeopathic Congress, 1970. Archival photograph from the Faculty of Homeopathy, London. Source: facultyofhomeopathy.org (accessed 1 June 2026).