The clients of lay healers and physicians during the 19^th century – a description

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While at the beginning of the 19^th century, especially for the poorer parts of the society, the lay healer was often the only option for receiving medical care by the end of the century the lay healer became a real alternative for all parts of the society (Faltin p. 207).

Lay healers (Faltin pp. 233) were mainly from the middle class, often spoke the language of their clients and used more time for the anamnesis of their clients. Although, the lay healers covered the same spectrum as the physician they often charged less – hence they hardly could survive from their work! As many lay healers were part of the anti-modernist movements and open for all kind of new approaches like occultism, spiritism, mysticism which was exactly the opposite of the exact science oriented medicine, many clients were attracted by those approaches. Nonetheless, lay healers tried to overcome the stigma of quackery by professionalization and by building associations. As there was no legal support for them and as the physicians continuously were fighting against them a real professionalization could not take place. Yet, many famous homeopaths were lay healers like Hahnemann’s second wife Melanie Hahnemann and Clemens Boenninghausen (1785-1864).

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Figure 3: Lay healers and licensed physicians in Wuerttemberg

Figure 3[i] shows lay healers and physicians in Württemberg from 1872 until 1935. In 1872 only few lay healers treated clients in comparison to physicians. Over the next 40 years this changed considerably. In 1914, one third of the healing profession were lay healers and less than two third physicians. When in 1919, Prussia incorporated Naturopathy in the university the numbers physicians increased and lay healers declined![ii]

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