Last week I was delighted to attend a very special birthday party. Jane Gilchrist, treat a lifelong homeopathy supporter and active member of the Friends of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, was celebrating her 100th birthday.
After Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her family, Jane is probably Britain’s most famous user of homeopathic medicine and what an advertisement for homeopathy she is! Watch a few minutes of her birthday speech and you will quickly see that this is a very special 100 year old lady. I was particularly pleased to learn from her that Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were patients of the founder of the hospital, Dr Quin in the 19th century. Oh to have those two literary geniuses write a bit of copy for us now!
Jane volunteered to work at the tearoom of the hospital for decades and is still available there for chats about homeopathy. She claims that her life achievement was to start the Bromley Homeopathic Clinic (NHS) which was immensely popular, lasted for 14 years but was unfortunately lost when the homeopathic hospital at Tunbridge Wells to which it was affiliated, was forced to close in 2009.
The party was well attended and Jane was her usual effervescent self, looking anything but her 100 years. As far as homeopathy is concerned, this is indeed anecdotal evidence – but then some!
