BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ical.marudot.com//iCal Event Maker
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
LAST-MODIFIED:20250410T142247Z
TZURL:https://www.tzurl.org/zoneinfo-outlook/Europe/London
X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZNAME:BST
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
DTSTART:19700329T010000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZNAME:GMT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
DTSTART:19701025T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260826T120505Z
UID:1787745648190-38772@ical.marudot.com
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270208T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270208T213000
SUMMARY:Greenwich SITP: “Purges\, Emetics\, Bleedings”… and Experience? [Dr Caitjan Gainty]
URL:https://greenwichskeptics.org/
DESCRIPTION:In 2018\, in response to a legal challenge\, the NHS formally discontinued funding homeopathic care and remedies\, which surely came as a blow to then one of the largest homeopathic facilities in Europe\, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine or\, as it was known between its founding in 1849 and its 2010 name change\, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. In no small way this move was helped by the work of the physician-scientist Edzard Ernst\, whose extensive and intensive scientific scrutiny of complementary and alternative therapies – especially during his near 30 year tenure as the Laing Chair in Complementary Medicine at Exeter - has relegated most homeopathic remedies to the therapeutic scrap heap. \n \nFor many of us\, neither Ernst’s findings nor the NHS’s defunding of homeopathy are so surprising. After all\, from Samuel Hahnemann’s founding of homeopathy in the early 19th century to the present\, homeopathy has been not just subject to critique but widely mocked\, for the twinned absurdities that characterised its remedies: serial dilution\, to the point where only “essence” was left\, and a showy\, often theatre-worthy choreography of rubbing and shaking required to “activate” it. What is surprising\, though\, is just how attached we’ve been to homeopathy nevertheless\, such that its dislocation as a legitimate medical therapy would come so late and require so much to get it off of the NHS’ books. \n \nWhat is it we have liked\, and judging by its ongoing global popularity\, continue to like so much about homeopathy? That’s the question that guides this talk\, inspiring both a look back to the 19th century origins of homeopathic practices and their adherents and critics and a look from the vantage point of homeopathy at the rest of medicine’s more-pluralistic-than-we-like-to-think landscape.   \n \nCaitjan Gainty is an award-winning writer and a historian of medicine at King’s College London. She has written two books\, one on the surprising significance of efficiency - an idea and set of practices borrowed from the factory floor - for early 20th century American medical practice\, and the other\, titled Healthy Scepticism\, on the history and contemporary of medicine written from the vantage point of the hidden doubters and critics in us all. Caitjan is in the midst of researching a new project tentatively titled Unproductive\, which offers up a history of our obsession with being productive and the wild things it has made us do and think and believe in its pursuit. 
LOCATION:The Plume of Feathers\, 19 Park Vista\, Greenwich\, SE10 9LZ
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR