Almroth Edward Wright 1861 - 1947

Almroth Edward Wright 1861 - 1947 was a British bacteriologist and immunologist. He is best known for advancing vaccination through the use of autogenous vaccines (prepared from the bacteria harboured by the patient) and also through typhoid vaccination with typhoid bacilli killed by heat.

Wright noted with concern how massive doses of vaccine in therapeutic treatment led to local infections. He called this the ’negative phase’, which Hahnemann had identified earlier and called an ’aggravation‘.

Wright’s opsonic index incorporates Hahnemann’s views on repetition of doses and his ’collateral immunisation’ uses the homeopathic notion of similars.

In their use of the “similar” medicine these procedures are akin to homeopathy. But in one major respect they have not followed the homeopathic procedure: no effort is made to individualize.

This is especially true of vaccines against the disease of childhood (whooping cough, measles, mumps) which are prescribed across the board with no effort to check out beforehand whether the child will react violently or not.

The outcome has been a major plague of adverse reactions to these vaccines about which I have written extensively.

Almroth Wright, who developed therapeutic vaccination to a high level of efficacy, did make a major effort to individualize. But his followers were not willing to invest the same time and effort, and their results were less good than his own.

In England, Almroth Wright, during the decades from 1900 to 1940, developed therapeutic vaccines to a high degree of efficacy in such diseases as arthritis, pneumonia, streptococcal and staphylococcal infections, boils, typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis, whooping cough, erysipelas, and another 50 or so different conditions.

Almroth Wright was a close friend of homeopath Sir John Weir, and he admitted that homeopathy did influence his work.

These pioneers of immunology were in many cases aware of the connection with homeopathy. Emil Adolph von Behring recognized this relationship and was not loath to pay compliments to Hahnemann and the homeopathic school, even though this made his professorial life difficult at times.

Almroth Wright, who has a good friend of Sir John Weir, England’s leading homeopath of the first half of the 20th century, was also constrained at times to recognize the relationship between homeopathy and his own procedures.

On the other hand, Robert Koch never admitted any such relationship in respect of Tuberculin; it is my opinion that his reluctance to reduce the doses of Tuberculin to the range in which they were sage to use was due to his fear of being branded a homeopathic sympathizer.

Supporters of Homeopathy