Electrohomeopathy, also spelled electro-homoeopathy or electrohomoeopathy, and sometimes Matteism, Mattei cancer cure, and electropathy, is a 19th-century pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine devised by Italian nobleman Cesare Mattei (1809–1896). It combined homeopathy, herbal preparations, spagyric or alchemical language, older humoral ideas concerning the blood and lymphatic system, and claims about therapeutic "vegetable electricity".
Mattei promoted electrohomeopathy as a "new science" and claimed that his remedies could treat a wide range of diseases, particularly cancer. The system used medicated globules and liquid remedies called "electricities", whose exact composition and method of preparation were kept secret.
Electrohomeopathy attracted a popular following in Italy and abroad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with authorised depots, translations, manuals and specialist periodicals in several countries. It was rejected by orthodox physicians and also criticised by homeopaths because of its undisclosed compound remedies and lack of scientific evidence. Modern medical and legal sources generally treat it as an unrecognised or pseudoscientific therapy.
Origins
Electrohomeopathy was developed by Count Cesare Mattei after his withdrawal from political life in the Papal States. Mattei had no medical degree, but became increasingly interested in homeopathy and medical experimentation after the death of his mother, an event that later biographical sources connect with his distrust of official clinical medicine.
Mattei established the symbolic centre of his system at Rocchetta Mattei, an eclectic castle that he began building in 1850 on the ruins of the medieval Rocca di Savignano, in the Bolognese Apennines. The castle functioned as his residence, a place for receiving patients and the emblem of his medical enterprise.
Mattei called his system elettromiopatia or elettromeopatia. Treccani describes it as a mixture of homeopathy, phytotherapy, alchemy and magnetism that went beyond the principles of Samuel Hahnemann, especially through its use of compound remedies and its doctrine of bodily electricity.
Theory
Mattei's system was based on the idea that disease resulted from disturbances in the blood, the lymph, or both. Remedies were therefore divided according to whether they were believed to act mainly on the blood, on the lymphatic system, or on both systems together.
The term "electrohomeopathy" referred not to the use of electrical machines, but to Mattei's claim that plant-derived preparations contained a form of therapeutic "vegetable electricity". A hostile contemporary account in the British Medical Journal mocked this claim, describing Mattei's "red electricity" and "white electricity" as fictitious labels attached to vegetable compounds.
Near-contemporary manuals associated with Mattei's authorised depots explained the system through two broad constitutions, "lymphatic" and "angioitic", and interpreted treatment as the restoration of balance between diseased lymph and diseased blood. Later commentators have also noted affinities with older humoral medicine, Brownianism, vitalist ideas and modified homeopathic principles.
Remedies and formulation
Globules and electricities
The practical materia medica of electrohomeopathy consisted mainly of medicated globules and liquid preparations known in English-language manuals as "electricities". Gliddon's 1892 manual, published by the London Central Mattei Depot, described the solid remedies as small white globules, pills or grains, but distinguished them from ordinary homeopathic sugar pills, stating that they were manufactured in that form and dissolved more slowly. The liquid "electricities" were described as clear liquids, apparently resembling water.
Mattei's remedies were used both internally and externally. Manuals described globules taken dry or dissolved in water, as well as baths, gargles, injections, compresses and salves made from the remedies. The "electricities" were chiefly applied externally to painful parts or nerve points, but could also be taken internally in drops on sugar or in water.
A surviving medicine chest in the Science Museum Group collection, produced in Bologna between 1871 and 1885, contains four large labelled bottles and sixteen phials. The museum notes that the large bottles were labelled only by colour, such as red, green, white, yellow and blue, so that the actual ingredients remained undisclosed. Ointments were prepared from ingredients taken from both the large bottles and the small phials. One phial labelled "Canceroso 5" was associated with a wide range of claimed uses, including bruises, cancers, chilblains, hair loss, skin diseases and varicose veins.
Classification
Modern summaries of Mattei's materia medica describe eight principal groups of globule remedies: anti-scrofulous, anti-cancerous, anti-angioitic, febrifuge, pectoral, anti-lymphatic, vermifuge and anti-venereal. The liquid "electricities" were classified by colour and polarity as red, blue, white, yellow and green.
This structure differed from orthodox Hahnemannian homeopathy because Mattei used compound secret preparations rather than simple remedies selected according to a published materia medica. Treccani identifies this secrecy and compound character as one of the main points of criticism made against him by both physicians and homeopaths.
Secrecy and spagyric language
The exact preparation of the remedies was deliberately secret. Gliddon's manual stated that their manufacture followed the medieval doctrine of the spagyrics and that the way of combining different series of plants into individual remedies was Mattei's own discovery and "remains his secret". Treccani likewise states that both the composition and the method of preparation of Mattei's remedies were kept secret.
The secrecy of the formulas was not merely a technical detail but part of the identity and commercial organisation of the system. Gliddon's manual warned that no remedies, books or pamphlets were authorised by Mattei unless they bore the castle trade mark with the words "Rimedi elettromiopatici del Conte Cesare Mattei, Bologna, Marca di fabbrica".
Publications and translations
Mattei published several works explaining and promoting his system, including Un poco di storia sui rimedj Mattei (1874), Emancipazione dell'uomo dal medico pei rimedi Mattei (1875), Elettromiopatia: scienza nuova che cura il sangue e sana l'organismo (1878), Vade-mecum della elettromeopatia (1879), Elettro-omeopatia: nuovo vade-mecum (1883) and Scienza nuova: storia dell'elettromiopatia (1892).
The system quickly generated translations and adaptations. Electro-homoeopathic Medicine: A New Medical System, translated by Robert Masters Theobald and published in London by David Stott in 1888, was a 374-page English version based on the French Médecine electro-homéopathique of 1883.
German-language publishing was particularly active. Carl-Friedrich Zimpel's 1869 book Die vegetabilische Elektrizität zu Heilzwecken und die homöopathisch-vegetabilischen Heilmittel des Grafen Cesare Mattei helped connect Mattei's remedies with the German spagyric tradition. Later German editions and manuals included authorised and revised presentations of Mattei's principles, particularly through the work of Theodor Krauss.
Distribution and international diffusion
Mattei's system had considerable popular success in Italy and abroad, especially in France and Germany. Because he was not a qualified physician, he generally practised in the presence of a doctor to avoid prosecution for illegal practice.
In 1869, through his connections with papal circles, Mattei obtained authorisation from Pope Pius IX to test his remedies for three months in the Roman military convalescent hospital of Santa Teresa, whose medical director supported him. In 1881, after years of promotion and controversy, Mattei began mass production of his remedies and organised their export through a network of authorised depots. The network grew from 26 initial depots, the first in Bologna, to 107 by 1884, with locations in Europe, the United States, Haiti and China.
The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei gives a broader list of early depots, including major Italian cities as well as Paris, Nice, Regensburg, Geneva, London, Warsaw, Kraków, Moscow, Odessa, several Spanish towns, Delft, Mangalore, Yokohama and Buenos Aires. It states that under Mario Venturoli Mattei the number of depots reached 266 in 1914.
British journalist W. T. Stead, who visited Mattei and wrote favourably about him in 1891, reported that the practical distribution of the remedies was managed from Bologna by Mario Venturoli Mattei and that, according to Venturoli, about a million phials of granules and a similar number of bottles of "electricities" and boxes of ointment were being sent out each year.
Periodicals and institutional promotion
The international spread of electrohomeopathy was supported by specialised publications, institutes and depots. In Switzerland, the Elektro-homöopathisches Institut in Geneva published the monthly Annalen der Elektro-Homöopathie und Gesundheitspflege from 1891 to 1902. According to E-Periodica, the journal promoted the version of the therapy further developed in Switzerland and used case reports to support its claimed successes; it was addressed to homeopathic pharmacies around the world.
Albert Sauter (1846–1896), a Geneva pharmaceutical entrepreneur and owner of a homeopathic pharmacy, was closely involved in the journal's promotion of the contested method. In 1903 the periodical continued under the title Sauter's Annalen für Gesundheitspflege, and its emphasis shifted toward general health, naturopathic ideas and related remedies.
Reception and criticism
Medical criticism
Electrohomeopathy attracted both supporters and fierce critics. The British Medical Journal attacked Mattei's theory in 1891, describing the claim that coloured vegetable compounds contained therapeutic electricity as a fiction. E. J. Kempf later characterised the system as one in which Mattei "prates" of coloured electricity, describing the theory as "utter idiocy" despite its popular following.
The most important British medical inquiry followed Stead's favourable article and challenge to the medical profession. A committee under Morell Mackenzie observed five patients with breast cancer who had been selected by supporters of Matteism. According to G. W. Potter's 1892 report in the British Medical Journal, the cancerous growths continued to progress during the observation period. Potter concluded that Matteism was "vulgar, unadulterated, unredeemed quackery" and reported that A. W. Stokes had analysed the "electricities" and found no reaction other than that of plain distilled water.
In the English-speaking world Mattei's remedies became associated with what later historical literature called the "Mattei cancer cure". Joseph O. Baylen examined the phenomenon in his 1969 article "The Mattei Cancer Cure: A Victorian Nostrum", published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
Homeopathic criticism
Electrohomeopathy was also criticised from within the homeopathic world. Homeopaths objected that Mattei's remedies were compound and undisclosed, whereas Hahnemannian homeopathy traditionally emphasised known remedies and a published materia medica. E. W. Berridge's article "Matteism: The Latest Craze" appeared in The Homoeopathic Physician in 1888, attacking the system from a homeopathic perspective.
Later homeopathic criticism also attacked the identity of the system itself. An 1899 article in The Homoeopathic Recorder, titled "The Mattei Humbuggery", described electrohomeopathy as a revived and commercially advertised offshoot rather than orthodox homeopathy, and criticised the secret and compound character of the remedies.
Supporters and patients