Hans Theodor Ritter 1900 - 1978

Hans Theodor Ritter 1900? - 1978? was the Directing Homeopathic Physician at the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital.

Hans Ritter was a colleague of Alfons Stiegele.

The Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital was one of the major facilities for homeopathy in Wuerttemberg; it was opened in 1940, and well known names in homeopathy the postwar years have worked there, such as: Hermann Schlueter, Alfons Stiegele, Erich Unseld, the most famous medical director was probably Otto Leeser and his senior Julius Mezger.

The Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital had a clinic where Oswald Schlegel, Hans Ritter, Konrad and Hotzer worked, to name just a few names.

The rate of homeopathic treatments in the outpatients’ clinic of the Robert Bosch Hospital is higher. An analysis for a period from 1957 to 1973 shows, that the rate of exclusive or mixed homeopathic treatments was very high: around 75 %.

So, as much as possible, patients were homeopathically treated, this is to say, that in the year 1966/1967 for 169 patients 911 homeopathic and 396 conventional medicines were prescribed (a ratio of 2,3 to 1 in favour of homeopathic remedies). Conspicuously, in average, every patient received 5,4 homeopathic and additionally 2,3 conventional prescriptions. About 58 % of the patients were treated exclusively homeopathically.

The directing physician Hans Ritter came to the conclusion “that in the outpatients’ department, a pretty large part is treated homeopathically”, though, he made a significant restriction: the homeopathically treated patients “also could just as well or even better” be treated with orthodox medicine; but many respond better to homeopathic remedies.

Under the directing physician Hans Ritter (1957-1968), the existing practice of homeopathy in the outpatients’ department for reasons of scientific rigour, tried to follow a clear, scientifically verifiable line.

Hans Ritter exclusively used low potencies, as for him which could only be decided according to one’s experience at the hospital bed as to which dose would be appropriate in a specific case. The spectrum of potencies mainly was in the narrow range between undiluted and 6d.

The problem with this practice was that a number of remedies were administered at the same time. Basically, Ritter tried to administer only one remedy in order to be able to observe its effects well. But on the basis of the “multimorbidity” of many patients, it frequently just remained to be a “pious hope” to prescribe a single remedy. Besides, the picture of the symptoms often has been so diversified in form that it was impossible to cover the picture of the disease with just one remedy alone. Then he prescribed several remedies “to, as it were, pepper with shot instead to shoot with a bullet”.

Obviously concerning remedy selection, Hans Ritter was oriented closely towards orthodox medicine: indeed, he included subjective symptoms in his anamnesis, nevertheless, finally he treated mainly according to an organotropic point of view.: “We did already hint to the fact that we do not attach as much significance to individualization in homeopathy as is likely to be promulgated.”

Hans Ritter also seemed to concede: ”… that our today’s medical science (modern medicine) is the unalterable basis not only in diagnostic, but also in therapeutic respect.” …

Hans Ritter had proven the effectiveness of around 50 homeopathic remedies in such a way, carefully analyzing the medical records of homeopathically treated persons afterwards. He had a box for each remedy, in which the records of the patients were filed according to the remedy they received. So, until 1958, there was an extensive collection of cases; for example, Ritter has collected 400 records of treatments with Nux vomica. But he did not analyse and publish all of his remedy collections.

Hans Ritter wrote  Ein homöotherapeutischer doppelter Blindversuch und seine Problematik. Hippokrates 37(12), 1966: 472-476, Samuel Hahnemann: Sein Leben und Werk in neuer Sicht, Treatment of Bronchial Asthma of Children, Klinische Homöopathie with Alfons Stiegele, Homöopathie als Ergänzungstherapie, Aktuelle Homöopathie, Homöopathische Propädeutik; Einführung in die Grundlagen der praktischen Homöopathie,

Of interest:

Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra trained homeopath John Galley Blackley.

Friedrich Edmund Peithner Ritter von Lichtenfels:

… who, in 1823, lived close to Prague with his family and who later rose to the post of personal physician to the governing prince of Liechtenstein, discovered his interest in Hahnemann’s doctrine. He started a homeopathic practice which he continued later, after his doctorate (1824), in Vienna. Still under Emperor Franz I, Peithner was granted ad personam the privilege to treat his patients homeopathically.

Hans Ritter von Lex 1893 - 1970 was a German political figure and the President of the German Red Cross (German: Deutsches Rotes Kreuz) from 1961 to 1967.

Joseph Beer Ritter von Baier 1788 - 1857:

… worked as a medical doctor in the Prague orphanage and later as personal physician to Prince Öttingen Wallerstein. He also belonged to a small circle of individuals who broke the ground for homeopathy in Bohemia.

Ritter von Koch was a homeopath in Bratislava in the 1860s.